JACK-SHOOTING IN A FOGGY NIGHT. 181 



boat from the meadow and shoved out into clear 

 water. We had heard nothing from the deer since 

 he left the river. Thinking that possibly he might 

 have stopped, after gaining the bank, to look back, 

 as deer often do, I rose slowly in the boat, turned 

 up the jack, and peered anxiously into the fog. 

 The strong reflector bored a lane through the fleecy 

 mass for some fifty feet, perhaps ; even at that dis- 

 tance objects mingled grotesquely with the fog. At 

 the extreme end of the opening I detected a bright, 

 diamond-like spark. What was it ? I turned the 

 jack up, and I turned it down. I lowered myself 

 imtil my eyes looked along the line of the grass. 

 I raised myseK on tiptoe. Nothing more could be 

 seen. " It may be the eye of a deer, and it may be 

 only a drop of water, or a wet leaf," said I to my- 

 self. StiU it looked gamy. I concluded to launch 

 a bullet at it anyway. A^^iispering to Martin to 

 steady the boat, I simk my eye well do^YD. into the 

 sights, and, holding for the gleam amid the marsh- 

 grass, fired. The smoke, mingling heavily with the 

 fog, made aU murky before me, while the explo- 

 sion, striking against the mountains on either side, 

 started a dozen reverberations, so that we could 

 neither see nor hear what was the result of the 

 shot. After waiting in silence a few moments, 

 hoping to hear the deer " kick," without any such 

 happy result, I told IMartin I would go ashore to 

 load, and see what it was I had shot at. He paddled 



