120 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 
and being apparently well satisfied with its scrutiny, it 
trotted away, much to my disappointment, for though I 
wished it a ‘‘speedy taking off,” it was not by running 
off, but by leaving me its hide. While I was trudging 
through the tangled shrubbery I heard shots quite fre- 
quently to my right—I was on the extreme left—but I 
did not fire once in the space of an hour, although 
I knew very well that grouse were as abundant as they 
could well be, and that deer were numerous enough to 
satisfy the most insatiable hunter. I floundered along, 
however, until I came to a small lake which was dammed 
up in several places by the domiciles of beavers. Being 
very anxious to capture one of these creatures, I watched 
their dams for the space of fifteen or twenty minutes, 
and finally caught a glimpse of two as they thrust their 
noses above the water, quite close to the wall, and not 
forty feet away from me. When they got their heads 
close together I gave them both barrels’in rapid succes- 
sion, and killed them, as the shot penetrated to the 
brain through the eyes. I then secured them before 
they could sink out of sight. 
Slinging them on a pole, by tying their hind legs to- 
gether, I started back for camp, in order to hand them 
to the cook, so that he might give us roast beaver tail 
for dinner. I arrived there in due time—though I feared 
once or twice I had lost my way, as I crossed and re- 
crossed my own tracks—and I had no sooner entered 
than the chief of the pots began questioning me about 
my movements in such a peculiar manner that I asked 
him what ailed him, and intimated that the dignity of 
his new duties had turned his head. 
‘Somebody has been fooling around the camp since 
I’ve been here, and trying to scare me, and I thought 
probably it was you,” he said. 
“‘Did you see any person?” 
“IT did once, behind that tree”—pointing to a huge 
