however, knew that the animal, from its actions, was mortally wounded.
He said nothing, but paddled quietly to the shore, and there, just
over the bank, in the tall grass and weeds, lay the noble buck, stone
dead. He had gone down and died without a struggle. A proud man was
the Doctor, as he passed his hunting-knife across the throat of the
deer, and gazed upon its broad antlers, now in the velvet, pointing to
the course of the ball right through its vitals, in on one side and
out on the other. We had venison for the next four-and-twenty hours,
and we disturbed the deer no more that afternoon.

The deep baying of the stag-hounds, as we entered the little lake,
apprised us of the location of our tents, and we were glad to reach
them, and stretch our limbs upon the bed of boughs beneath them, for
the day had been warm, and our journey a weary one. Our pioneer had
made the entire journey the day before, though he had to pass over all
the carrying-places three times. We found that he had killed two deer,
and had the meat from them, cut into thin slips, undergoing the
process of "jerking," in a bark smokehouse erected near the tents. He
had also a beautiful string of trout ready for our supper, taken in a
way peculiarly his own. He had used neither bait nor fly.

After supper, as we sat looking out over the lake in front of our
tents, the Doctor inquired of our pioneer how he had taken his fish,
as he had with him neither rod nor flies, and there was no bait to be
found in the woods proper for trout.

"Why," said he, "I got lonesome yesterday, all alone up here in the
woods, waiting for you, and I thought I'd take a look around the shore
of the lake, thinking I might find a gold mine, or a pocketful of
diamonds, or something of that sort; so I took my rifle and the two