THE COMMODORE AND CREW. 3iI 

simple half hitch with the bite of the strap. Should he wish 
to drop it he finds no knots; one twitch at the hanging end, 
and off it drops; and always his hands and arms are free for 
his rifle. One can jump the brook, walk the boles of the old 
down trees, sit down or stand up, stop and pass on, but he 
has his lunch still, and with but little bother. We speak the 
second time of this easy way of carrying with us what we 
wish on a tramp, and of having with us, the one, or often two 
of these handiest of knapsacks to bring home our game, think- 
ing it may prove a useful hint to some younger campers. 
Over the brook and up beside it a long way and we rise 
upon a pretty level, grown up to white birches and small firs, 
which with the brook singing away merrily, hints so strongly 
of game, and grouse particularly, that we slow down to a 
creep along gait. And right we are, for soon close beside us 
we hear the ‘‘squit, squit” of a partridge, and up goes an old 
drummer, quickly followed by his mate, making a long flight, 
but we have marked them pretty well to a clump of spruce 
nearly on our way. 
Fresh tracks of a deer we see while passing on to get the 
birds, and hesitate about the propriety of shooting. But they 
sit just nice for a fine shot, with their necks stretched high, 
and ‘they must surely be fat,” whispers the Commodore, and 
deer or no deer, hit or miss, he proposes to try for them. 
Each of us getting sight we count, one, two, three! there is 
only one report ; the Commodore picks up the birds, folds each 
headless neck beneath a wing of each, smoothes them out ad- 
miringly, as usual, and lays them upon the moss, strips off a 
sheet of white birch bark, takes the fine, thin inner sheet from 
this again, which is a bright, pretty wrapping paper for us 
when on the hunt. He does them up in this as handy 
as if a retail tea merchant, ties them snug with a small and 
