start off in an instant. Luckily, however, the wind was blowing from
his direction to mine. Presently, he walked into the open space; and
whilst I was cautiously raising my gun, he disappeared beneath the brow
of a small hill; but almost immediately, from the inequality of the
ground, his head and shoulders again became visible. On this, I
instantly fired.

Astonished and mortified was I, when I saw him scamper off with his
tail up, as if nothing had happened. Still, I was sure I must have hit
him, as he was not forty yards from where I sat, his broadside being
towards me. So I followed the track for about two hundred yards, but
without seeing any blood; and was in the act of turning back,
concluding, that as he had hoisted his tail, I had missed him
altogether. Indeed, I had often heard, that if they show the white
feather, as putting up their tail is called by Canadian sportsmen--they
are not hit. This, however, is a mistake; for, in the act of turning
round to retrace my steps, I saw a small drop of blood upon a dry leaf.
I now felt quite certain that I had struck him. On proceeding a few
yards further, I saw several large splashes of blood. There was now no
room left for doubt; and, in another minute I was standing beside the
first buck I had ever killed. On opening him, I found I had put a ball
and five buck-shot into him, which had entered just behind the fore-
shoulder; and though two of these shots had lodged in the lungs, he
had, notwithstanding this, continued to run on the full jump, more than
two hundred yards.

Not long after this adventure, my brother-in-law shot a deer through
the heart, which ran full a hundred yards before he dropped.

Two or three years after, in the township of Douro, where I now reside,