9 o 



RECREATION. 



a word he walked right into our affections 

 and made himself at home from the first. 



I 'had been given to understand that his 

 one accomplishment was hunting ; so he 

 lounged around the premises in idleness 

 through the summer. He 'became popular 

 with the town children and played with 

 them in the street a great deal, but his 

 play was rough at times, his humor seem- 

 ing to lack a balance wheel. Occasionally 

 he would throw himself against a boy with 

 such force as to hurl him to the ground, 

 and sometimes he took liberties with the 

 girls that mussed their skirts and ex- 

 posed more white than was seemly. These 

 excesses seemed to spring from no evil de- 

 sign, but from the exuberance of an inno- 

 cent, childish nature. 



If his tomboy capers were rebuked he 

 would instantly retire to the front ve- 

 randa and sit on the steps in a contrite 

 attitude the remainder of the evening. 



He was suspicious, and nothing escaped 

 his sight. If a stranger came on the lot 

 he watched him continually, and would 

 openly follow any negro, clearly evincing 

 his opinion of the dishonesty of the race. 

 Two things invariably made his angry, 

 tramps and skunks. He drove the former 

 off the premises, and in hunting he annoyed 

 me by always stopping to kill any luckless 

 skunk the trail led us on. He did this feat 

 deftly, too. I never saw him get perfumed 

 by a skunk but once, and as my remons- 

 trances had been in vain I was secretly 

 gratified at his mishap. 



As the hunting season approached he 

 became restless, and when at last we were 

 off he seemed beside himself with joy. He 

 loved the solitude of the forest, the chase 

 and the cheery camp fire under the pines 

 by the lakeside. 



In our rambles I talked to him a great 

 deal and he answered by signs and glances. 

 He never carried a gun. He had learned 

 the art of trailing a deer by his sight while 

 living with Kirkland, and he seemed to 

 consider that his only part of the work 

 and the sport. It was marvellous how well 

 he did it. I watched him a long time trying 

 to learn his method, but I never got beyond 

 the patent fact that he looked not close 

 under foot for the track, but 20 or 30 

 feet ahead. He knew a fresh trail from 

 an old one instantly. On the open sand hills 

 this was something that always puzzled me. 

 In good weather a track 24 hours old and 

 one 3 hours old were alike to me, but not 

 so to him. He never made a mistake in 

 that respect. When we struck a fresh trail 

 he took the lead and I walked a few steps 

 behind. If the trail led across rough ground 

 where grass, leaves or pine needles were 

 thick I sometimes had to wait for him a 

 little, but he always, or nearly always, 

 lifted the trail across, and he knew in- 



tuitively when we were approaching the 

 bunch of palmetto or bush clump where 

 the quarry lay concealed. 



Sometimes we would follow the trail 

 of a buck only to have me empty a maga- 

 zine without effect; this did not annoy 

 Colonel so much as it did me. He would 

 calmly start off across country to find 

 another track. 



One season we found a hard problem in 

 the spoor of a large buck, distinctly 

 marked. The outer section of the rear right 

 foot turned outward, and this made that 

 buck's track easy to distinguish from all 

 others. We got on it several times, and 

 after following it long distances it would 

 seemingly disappear from the face of the 

 earth. Wide circuits over soft ground 

 would not raise it again. Once we lost the 

 trail on an open sandy hillside where it 

 should have been plain. While waiting for 

 Taurus to puzzle it out I happened to 

 raise my eyes to the crest of the hill, 500 

 yards away, and there stood, outlined 

 against the horizon, the most magnificent 

 buck I have ever seen. His majestic head 

 and antlers were beautifully poised, and 

 he was looking down the slope at us in 

 apparent disdain. I called Taurus's at- 

 tention to him. While we stood foiled but 

 admiring, the buck sprang gracefully over 

 the crest and disappeared. We went on to 

 the top and viewed the track. It was the 

 same one we had been trailing. 



Other hunters had followed that marked 

 trail. My brother-in-law, Moore, had seen 

 the track and followed it many hours at a 

 time. He and Taurus and I quit other 

 tracks when we found this. We named 

 the buck Slewfoot. He was so elusive that 

 after a season or 2 others stopped hunting 

 him and followed less cunning quarry. In- 

 deed some hunters began to believe that 

 Slewfoot was a phantom buck. He was 

 frequently seen, but always under such 

 circumstances that he escaped. One time 

 as Moore, Taurus and I were driving into 

 camp on the North end of Crooked lake, our 

 rifles in their cases under the wagon seat, 

 Slewfoot arose in front of us and stood 

 like a statue. (See Frontispiece). There was 

 a desperate clutching at the gun cases, but 

 before we were ready the buck ran slowly 

 and gracefully over the hill and away. The 

 most tantalizing part of it was that he 

 passed in an oblique course within 30 yards 

 of the wagon. His eyes and the poise of 

 his head denoted defiance rather than fear, 

 and the stateliness of his motion negatived 

 the idea that he was running from us. 

 Moore was livid with vexation, and I felt 

 my heart beating in my throat. Taurus was 

 sitting in the rear part of the wagon when 

 I turned to look at him. His attitude plainly 

 said that the poor mute, usually so gay and 

 frolicsome, was now dominated by fear. 

 After a moment T understood it. The fre- 



