120 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 
juleps, cocktails, ete. ‘Abe, have you e’er a shooting-iron 
that you can loan this coon ?” 
Abe having replied in the negative, and inquired the rea- 
son, was told that the most alfiatest big buck had crossed 
the road about a mile off, and gone into the squire’s corn. 
Quietly going to my bedroom, I unpacked my heaviest 
gun, a ten-bore, in which I have particular faith, and hav- 
ing noted the route that the teamster had come by, I fol- 
lowed the back track of his sled, and true enough found 
the prints of a very heavy buck. The day was still young, 
myself in good walking trim, and with an internal deter- 
mination not to be beaten, except night overtook me, and 
very probably with the hope to show the neighbors that a 
Britisher was good for some purposes, I followed the track 
with unusually willing steps and light heart. To get into 
the corn-field the buck had jumped the snake-fence, and 
afterward doubled back; and as the wind did not suit for 
me to enter at the same place, I made a considerable détour. 
In my right barrel I had sixteen buck-shot, about the size 
that would run one hundred to the pound, and a bullet in 
the left. As the corn had not yet been gathered, and the 
undergrowth of cuckle-burs and other weeds was tolerably 
dense, I had little doubt but that I should get sufficiently 
close to make use of the former. An old stager like my 
quarry, I knew from experience would be desperately 
sharp, so with the utmost caution I advanced up wind, eyes 
and ears strained to the utmost tension. I had only got 
about a fourth of the field traversed, when I heard some 
voices right to windward encouraging a dog to hold a pig. 
The noise of the men, dog, and porker I concluded would 
start the game off in the reverse direction, so hurriedly re- 
tracing my steps, I regained the fence, got over it, and 
took my stand at an angle that stretched close to a slough 
which was densely covered with a growth of various 
