THE DUSKY GROUSE. 189 
you found it necessary to shoot him, and I can sympa- 
thize with your feelings. It is very painful to be bad- 
ger-cide.” 
As no notice was taken of this, he ‘relapsed into silence 
until we reached the promontory. He was placed on a 
stand there, with instructions to shoot anything that at- 
tempted to bite him, even if it were a field mouse, and 
he promised to obey orders. We had not been long in 
position before the chorus of the dogs again resounded 
throughout the forest, and in less than twenty minutes 
we saw a deer swimming rapidly through the lake, and 
heading directly for us. I was on a runway below 
Smith, and as he seemed to have a good chance of killing 
the animal, I ran towards him to see if I could get a 
shot, in case he missed, but I soon found I had had my 
race for nothing, for on reaching his stand he had the 
creature lying on the sand before him, having shot it in 
the head with a charge of buckshot. 
_ “What made you shoot that doe?” I exclaimed; “you 
know she is running with her young.” 
“Doe you not like it?” he asked, with an unsophisti- 
cated air, as if he wanted to pretend he did not know he 
was trying to perpetrate a vile pun. 
“‘No,” said I, ‘‘you should never shoot a doe when 
she has her fawns with her; it is really cruel!” 
“‘T’m very sorry,” was the answer, ‘“‘but I will not 
doe it again.” 
The huntsman and the other members of the company 
soon joined us, and we learned from the former that the 
doe and her two fawns had started off together before 
the dogs, but that she concealed the latter in some shrub- 
bery, and then led the hounds a merry race until she 
plunged into the lake. He thought that few animals 
could exceed a ‘‘ squaw deer” in sagacity when she had 
her fawns by her side, as she had the habit of hiding 
them in thickets, and then circling about them, in order 
