86 EAMBLES AFTER SPOKT. 



distance. There was a good sprinkling of pheasants, 

 whicli afforded pretty good fun with a rifle which I bor- 

 rowed, carrying a bullet about a hundred to the pound, 

 I should say. I also made several excursions about the 

 neighbourhood among the farmers. By-the-bye, a farmer 

 in Oregon is rather a different kind of man from an 

 English one ; any chap who lives in the country, wears 

 his trousers tucked inside his boots, a wideawake hat, 

 a blue jumper shirt, and who can manage to scrape up an 

 old mule or "hoss,^^ calls himself a rancher right off. 

 However, they were very good fellows in their way; 

 rather fond of expectorating promiscuously, which on a 

 windy day is rather annoying, but they showed me all 

 the sport they could in the sbape of deer, of which any 

 reasonable quantity we could get at any time. 



That still-hunting for deer is pretty sport, too ; 

 someone, I think the Old Forest Ranger, calls it " the 

 poetry of shooting.^^ Poets themselves have not disdained 

 to sing the "merrie dun deer ^neath the greenwood 

 tree ; " and wasn^t Sweet Will himself locked up for 

 deer-stealing, or, at all events, let off with a caution ? 

 To go rambling along mid glades and primeval groves, 

 brushing aside the dewy brambles, or trampling the up- 

 turned flowrets with mocassined foot — when, hist ! a 

 rustle mid the boughs, and away jumps the pretty 

 thing with white tail flickering thro^ the leaves, and 

 a moment after out rings the rifle upon the morning air, 

 and the quarry lies gasping in death ! It seemed like 

 murder almost killing these mild-eyed deer, and I never 

 wantonly slew more than sufficient for food. Well, after 

 a bit I got tired of such small game, and I longed to get 

 hold of a " bar '^ — a real live grizzly, if possible. I was 

 exceedingly fortunate in getting an invitation from 



