DWIGHT-WIMAN CLUB. 



71 



The guide assigned me by "Master Gouldie"\vas Frank, — a 

 youth hardly twenty-one, strong, sturdy, and well acquainted not 

 only with the Muskoka region, but wi«h the ways, "the tricks and 

 the manners " of all the game therein, from squirrels and beavers to 

 deer, bear and moose. 



I shall not attempt to recount the exploits of this and of success- 

 ive hunts. For me, it is only appropriate to say how much of real 

 rest and respite from the " thousand cares and ten thousand per- 

 plexities " of a busy city life is afforded by sitting in a canoe on the 

 bosom of a lovely lake, in the midst of solitude utterly unbroken by 

 any appearance or sound of civilization, and disturbed only by the 

 sighing of the wind through the trees, the light ripple of water 

 made by a skilful oarsman, the occasional croak of a raven or 

 scream of a loon. I may also say that the excitement awakened by 

 the baying of the hounds when on the track of a deer, no v coming 

 nearer, now growing fainter by increasing distance, now winding 

 around a far-distant hill and quickly hurrying down to the shore of 

 the very lake where you are watching, must be experienced to be 

 appreciated. 



And when one can see, as was my good fortune, a splendid buck 

 dashing out of the forest and bounding along the sandy beach, mak- 

 ing many turns and leaps to disappear in the dense woods on the 

 opposite shore ; and the keen-scented hounds, with noses to the 

 ground, soon after following in hot pursuit, making the same sort 

 of turns and leaps which opposing logs and rocks had forced the deer 

 to make, the excitement of a horse race, or brilliant circus perfor- 

 mance, is dwarfed into insignificance. It was my fortune also, after 

 this same animal had plunged into and across a neighboring lake, 

 and escaped the double fire of the gallant hunter who was "on 

 watch " there, to see him enter again upon my watch, faraway from 

 the place of his first appearance, jump into the lake, and then to 

 engage in an exciting race after him with my canoe, aiding my guide 

 by the most vigorous strokes of paddling of which I was capable, 

 and finally to mercifully end in an instant the handsome creature's 

 fright by sending a bullet from my Winchester rifle into his brain. 

 On one other occasion I was equally fortunate in marksmanship, 

 after a no less exciting and spirited chase. My success I attribute 

 chiefly to the counsel of my guide, who had warned me against 

 firing while excited by the chase, and to my aaxiety not to wound, 

 but to kill my game at first shot. 



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