520 
evening after a day with the mallards 
at Big lake. He jumped my gentle- 
man from a bed of rotten logs in the 
mid-depths of the swamp and poured 
a charge of sixes into him from a rear 
elevation, making the buck to thrash 
vigorously away through cane and tim- 
ber. 
“He sho did hump hisse’f,” said Cato. 
“T reckon he gwyin’ yit. De 
mos’ bigges’ buck I evah 
seen in de woods.” 
We were all sitting around 
the camp-fire at Camp Plenty 
that chill November night 
and the ash logs, piled high 
against a monster blue-gum 
stump, shot bewildering, 
sparkling embroidery far in- 
to the jet-black canopy of 
night. Hoot-owls, raucously 
inquisitive, hallooed their 
curiosity and displeasure of 
this invasion of their chosen 
solitude, . Ed. Hornaday 
stood at the door of the cook 
tent, stalwart and straight, a 
perfect athlete of nineteen 
years. Doc Amory, sixty-six years old, 
hard as nails, the best shot and best 
hunter among us, watched him as he 
went to the woodpile, caught up an ash 
log and heaved it on the blaze, with a 
smile showing his white and even teeth, 
and a scrap of a song and a scollop of 
“buck and wing” dancing as he grabbed 
off the hat of one of the guides. He 
was always sky-larking and singing was 
Ed., and old Doc loved him like a son. 
“Ed.,” said the old hunter, “I’ve got 
two of the best farms in Kentucky, all 
stocked and fitted out completely. I'd 
give them both, and that means every- 
thing I’ve got, horses, houses, barns 
and cattle, everything—if I could stand 
in your moccasins to-night by this 
camp-fire, at your age, and with all the 
long years ahead of me.” 
The snort of a deer in the near-by 
brush interrupted this soliloquy, and 
everybody shunted his attention to 
where the sound came from. “That 
ain’t your deer, Doc, is it?’ asked 

CATO, THE COOK 
RECREATION 
Johnny Willis, one of the best guides 
in Arkansas. “Not him,” replied Doc, 
“he knows what a camp-fire is, and he 
has got less curiosity than a wild goose. 
By the way, I expect to get old ‘Grease- 
Foot’ this trip, boys,” continued Amory, 
as he lit a brier-root pipe and puffed 
out a tentative coil of ‘smoke. “Yes, 
the more I think of it, the more I can 
see myself standing by him 
admiring his antlers and 
guessing at his weight. This 
is the seventh year I’ve come 
to Mississippi county on 
purpose to get his horns, and 
a little bird tells me I win 
this time.” 
“What kind of a bird is 
that, Doc?” inquired Ed. 
Hornaday. “The kill-a-loo 
bird, Ed., the duck-billed 
thunder-pumper of the Bit- 
ter Creek region. Did you 
notice how quietly I ate my 
supper to-night? How I 
slammed those two gobblers 
down that I shot over on 
the ridge, and kept up a sort 
of sad thinking to myself?” 
“Why, yes, Doc,” chimed in a couple 
of the boys, “we thought maybe old 
Grease-Foot had back-tracked on you 
somewhere and given you the buck- 
laugh for your pains, and that you were 
kind of sore about it.” 
“Boys,” said Amory impressively, 
“T’ve had three shots at that deer and 
once I grazed him, if hair and blood 
count for anything. But to-day I gota 
hint from the lower sand-bar on Little 
river which may or may not mean that 
Grease-Foot is my meat. 
“Do you recollect the upper edge of 
that bar, Clarence ?”’ 
The elder guide nodded. 
“Well, I crossed in the skiff to the 
other side of the river, where we saw 
the turkey sign yesterday, and as | was 
going past the upper edge of the bar I 
almost hit the bar itself. And just as 
I was about to swing past I saw the 
print of the old fellow’s hoofs as plain 
as I see the camp-fire to-night. They 
