.§26 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
staggered off a few paces and fell dead upon the snow with 
all its entrails let out. The man got home with great diffi- 
culty and was laid up for some time after with his hurts. 
This was a lesson he never forgot, and always took a gun 
with him afterwards when he went into the woods on a crust. 
Piscator and I having determined on a trip to the famous 
Whittaker Lake, we set off on a fine morning before sunrise, 
and on foot, accompanied by two guides and as many dogs, 
-well trained to this lake hunting. The morning proved to 
.be especially warm, and one of the guides most expressively 
characterized it, as we passed up the southern side of a long 
hill— 
“Tswow! but it’s a yaller day!’ was gasped out by the 
fellow. 
I laughed heartily, and thought that might “pass.” The 
little oxen performed miracles in dragging the sled with our 
boat on it through the inconceivably rugged and tangled 
-woods, to the lake. The two guides went ahead to open 
the way. We reached the margin between twelve and one. 
When I reached the gap of the forest, which gave us an 
‘outlook over the lake—for I was some little distance ahead 
—imagine my astonishment at seeing four or five deer 
leisurely feeding on the edge of the water, on the opposite. 
shore. My first hasty impulse was to fire my rifle at them, 
they seemed so close; but then I remembered, and was at 
the same time reminded by the guide who followed, that 
the lake was nearly half a mile wide. The deer had not 
observed or heard us, since we had approached as quietly 
as possible. 
I stood and watched for some time the graceful and 
unconscious creatures leisurely cropping the lily leaves and 
buds that lay upon the surface of the calm lake. What a 
shame it seemed that we had thus come to disturb and rouse, 
,with a bloody reveille, this happy quiet. They seemed, in 
their hill-girt home, to be utterly ignorant of man’s harshness 
