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 B.PETERSON & BRO.: 
 

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THE DKEK STALKERS. 
 
 BV 
 
 FRANK FORESTER. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 T. B. PKTEJiSON & BROTHERS. 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS: 
 
 A SPORTING TALE OF THE 
 
 SOUTH-WESTERN COUNTIES. 
 
 BY FRAXK FORESTER.. 
 
 A.OTH0R OF "my SHOOTING-BOX," "THE WARWICK WOODLANDS," '•'tHK 
 QUORNDON HOUNI>S," ETC., ETC. 
 
 WITH ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 |3 !) 1 1 a Li c I ]j 1) I a : 
 
 T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 30(j CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
q5b 
 
 H5! 
 
 Entered according to Aet of Congress, in tho jear 1843, by 
 
 CAREY & HART, 
 
 ta the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in 
 and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 COLLINS, PRINTER. 
 
 » » * . 
 
Tif> 
 
 H. H. SIBLEY, Esq., 
 
 MEN DOT A, NEAR ST. PETER'S. 
 
 BETTER KNOWK BY HIS SPORTING ALIA.*, 
 
 HAL, A DAHCOTAH; 
 
 THI« UTTLE WORK 13 OEDICATEP, I>- TO'CTS JfOT LESS Of RXIPICT FO* Ut 
 
 SKILL Ai A SPORTSMAN, AND HIS POWER AS A WRITXIl, THAM 0» PSB- 
 
 30NAL FKIEXDSH;P AND KSTEKM, 
 
 EY 
 
 FRANK FORESTER. 
 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 If it be necessary to' make any remarks on 
 the occasion of offering a new Sporting Story to 
 the reading world, it will be enough to state that 
 this, like " My Shooting-Box," is an attempt to 
 carry a slight thread of connected story through 
 a variety of incidents, on the road, in the field, 
 and the forest ; and that its gist ifi to be found 
 briefly summed up in the last lines of the tale 
 itself, namely, ''that there is not only much 
 practical, but much moral utility, in the Gentle 
 Science of Woodcraft." 
 
 FRANK FORESTER. 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SPORTSMAN'S DRAG. 
 
 When land and rent are gone and spent, 
 
 Then driving is most excellent ; 
 
 For if all other fortunes fail, 
 
 You still at least can drive the mail. 
 
 Old So7ig. 
 
 In one of the south-western counties of New Yoik, 
 one of those, I mean, which lie between the Hudson 
 and the Delaware, and along the eastern or Mohawk's 
 branch of the latter river, there is a great tract of wild 
 and thinly settled land, well watered and well wooded, 
 and well peopled by those tribes of fur and feather 
 which are so keenly sought by the true sportsman, 
 though, for the most part, human habitations are few 
 and far between. 
 
 In the heart of this wild tract, among the huge, 
 round-headed hills, some stone-ribbed, bare, and 
 
 13 
 
14 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 crowned with circlets of primeval rock, others feathered 
 with luxuriant woodland from the base to the summit, 
 there lies a beautiful and lonely dell. The mountains, 
 for they indeed merit that name, fall down to it on every 
 side abruptly ; and the stream to which it owes its exist- 
 ence, winds to and fro, so deviously, and in such sud- 
 den curves, that the eye can scarce detect the point at 
 which it enters or departs from that small verdant basin. 
 
 Through this soft lap of ground there sweeps an ex- 
 cellent, though narrow road, dividing it into two parts 
 nearly equal ; that up the stream, to the right hand as 
 you travel westward, being occupied by a sweet green 
 meadow, as level and luxuriant as an English lawn ; that 
 downward, to the left, much narrower and deeper, and 
 filled with dense and thriving timber. 
 
 There was no house, however, on the meadow, nor, 
 with the exception of the winding road, any sign of 
 civilization in the place at all. 
 
 The green savannah lay some forty feet above the 
 bed of the stream, at the point where the bed crossed it, 
 and was fringed on every side, but the lowest, with an 
 even and regular belt of willows, aspens, and maples, 
 now clad in their most gorgeous hues, by the first frosts 
 of autumn. Across the lowest end of this basin there 
 was a long green mound, now forming the fence of the 
 load on that side, partially overrun with brushwood and 
 briars ; but in the centre it had been cut or broken 
 down abruptly, in order to give egress to the stream, 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 15 
 
 which plunged down to its lower level by an irregular, 
 foaming descent, half cataract, half rapid, of nearly forty 
 feet in height. 
 
 It needed but one glance to discover the origin of 
 that smooth, ntitural meadow ; it had been once a beaver- 
 pond, and that low, grassy mound, all overrun with 
 w^eeds and thick shrubbery, had been^ long years ago, 
 the work of the industrious amphibii. The hand of 
 man, it is probable, had broken it, w^hen the beavers 
 disappeared from their old haunts ; and the small wood- 
 land lake, drained by the outlet of its feeding stream, 
 had become the woodgirt savannah which we see be- 
 fore us. 
 
 Immediately in front of the fall, scarce ten yards dis- 
 tant from it, the bridge spanned the brook ; and often- 
 times, w^hen the wind blew from the northward, its 
 planks were slippery with the driven spray. Beneath 
 the single arch, there was a deep black pool, wherein 
 the foam-wreaths of the water-fall wheeled round and 
 round in sullen eddies ; but within ten yards the 
 w^ater became somewhat shallower, leaving an awk- 
 ward, s'tony ford, between the bridge and a second de- 
 scent, longer and steeper than the upper fall, down 
 which the mountain rivulet fretted and chafed, tdl it 
 was lost both to ear and eye far in the dingle to the 
 left. 
 
 It was past five o'clock one lovely autumn evening, 
 and the sun had already sunk behind the crest of the 
 
16 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 western hill, though long slant rays of yellow light 
 streamed through each gap and broken holtow of its 
 ridge, filling the valle}' with a transparent, hazy lustre, 
 which half revealed the scenery, half veiled it from the 
 dazzled eye. * 
 
 The woods were in their flush of autumnal glory, for 
 the air was keen and hard and bracing. There had 
 been a sharp frost on the previous night, and the washed 
 road, and brimful, turbid stream, showed that it had 
 succeeded heavy and continuous rains. Not a leaf, 
 therefore, had yet fallen from the earliest of the decidu- 
 ous trees ; yet not a leaf upon the hardiest, except the 
 evergreens alone, but had already undergone " a change 
 to something new and strange," and no imagination, 
 unused to the effects of an autumnal frost in America, 
 can fancy its unrivalled beauty. 
 
 A beautiful wild-deer had come out of the wood to 
 drink, and was standing beside the ford, having 
 quenched his thirst, gazing about him lazily, and unde- 
 cided what to do. 
 
 Suddenly he raised his head, snuffed the air eagerly, 
 as if he caught a taint on its breezy current, tossed his 
 wide antlers proudly, and dashed through the flooded 
 ford. 
 
 He was a tall and stately beast, yet for three times 
 his length in the middle of the brook he was swimming, 
 nor was it without something of an effort that he reached 
 the bank on the further side, up which he bounded with 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 17 
 
 long, graceful strides, and disappeared immediately in 
 the thick woods beyond. 
 
 It was some minutes ere any human sense could have 
 discerned the approach of that, whatever it might be, 
 which had alarmed the stag. 
 
 But, in a little while, the clatter of quick hoofs might 
 have been heard on the hard-beaten road, and the rapid 
 roll of a well-built and easy-running carriage, forming 
 as it were an accompaniment to a fine, manly voice, 
 trolling the stanza, which I have prefixed to this chapter, 
 until the wild woods rang to the jocund sound. 
 
 In a minute or two the vehicle which bore the singer 
 came rapidly into view, over the brow of the eastern 
 hill, drawn by four capital horses at a slapping pace. 
 
 It was rather a singular-looking carriage, half mail- 
 phaeton, half dog-cart, yet nothing could have been 
 contrived more suitable for a sporting conveyance, com- 
 bining at once room, lightness, strength, and beauty. 
 
 In front, it was neither more nor less than a high- 
 seated, open phaeton, with a tall, square dash-board, 
 and a seat so elevated that the driver was almost in a 
 standing posture as he sat, having thus the greatest pos- 
 sible command over his horses. Behind this was a box 
 body, with a slight rail along the top, and a comfortable 
 seat, much lower than that in front, as far aft as possible. 
 
 The whole body, which was supported upon three 
 long elliptic springs, and well furnished with wings of 
 patent leather, to ward off the mud splashed from the 
 
18 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 wheels, was painted of a deep, rich tea-colour, picked 
 out with black, and ornamented only by a small crest, 
 surrounded with a garter, painted in relief of the same 
 colours. 
 
 It had three lamps, one under the foot-board, so 
 placed as to throw its light under the horses' feet, far 
 forward; the other two, one above each fore-wheel, 
 with powerful reflectors. No baggage was in sight, 
 except a small trunk of tawny leather, on the rack be- 
 hind. But there w^as a profusion of fine bear- skins 
 hanging over all the seats, and covering the legs of the 
 travellers in the guise of aprons, all of the richest and 
 most costly fur. 
 
 The four horses, w^hich came trotting over the gentle 
 slope as if they had nothing behind them, were as clean 
 and powerful cobs as ever wore a collar. None of them 
 were above fifteen hands and an inch in height, with 
 capital forehands, high clean w^ithers, small heads well 
 set on, and blood-like ears. No one could look at them 
 without being struck by their perfect similarity in shape, 
 size, symmetry, and style of action. But here the simi- 
 larity ended ; for two, the offside wheeler and the nigh- 
 hand leader, were as black and as glittering as polished 
 jet ; the other two were beautiful silver grays. 
 
 Such were the team, which, stepping out at the rate of 
 ten miles an hour, all together, at a square handsome trot, 
 came clattering down the road, snapping at their long 
 brio-ht curbs, or nibbling in play at one another, without 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 19 
 
 a fleck of foam, or a spot of sweat on their shining coats, 
 whirling the heavy drag along as if it were a plaything. 
 For the load was indeed a heavy one. The fore seat 
 held two persons. The driver was a tall, well-made, 
 athletic young man, with light hair, and a keen quick 
 eye, dressed in a blue box-coat with many capes, which 
 disguised his whole figure. But it could not disguise 
 the graceful ease combined with firmness of his seat, 
 the quick delicate strength of his fingers as he mouthed 
 his high-mettled cattle, or the thorough coachman-like 
 skill with which he handled the long English four-horse 
 whip, which he carried athwart his neighbour's person. 
 That neighbour was as different a person as can well 
 be imagined from his companion. He was a man of 
 about fifty years, not above five feet six in height, by 
 about four feet in breadth across the shoulders, and six 
 in girt about the waist, weighing at least three hundred 
 pounds of solid flesh, yet lithe withal, and active. His 
 face was excellent, sun-burned and ruddy, yet with 
 fine small features, a lip curling with a perpetual smile 
 of humour and benevolence, an eye gleaming with 
 mirth and kindliness, and untaught intellect. That man 
 had the heart of a million. You could not look at him 
 for half a moment and doubt it. Ay' and a soul, too, 
 that would do honour to a prince — though the rich 
 men, the would-be aristocrats of our cities, would sneer 
 at him, forsooth, and perhaps cut him in town after 
 sharing his hospitality in the country, because he is 
 
20 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 rough and not a gentleman ! A gentleman ! — Heaven 
 save the mark I I should like to see one of them that 
 could vie with him in any of those points which make 
 the real gentleman ; kind heart, and open hand ; un- 
 willingness to hurt the feelings of the humblest ; respect 
 for everything that is honourable, great, and noble; and 
 contempt for everything that is not so, however well it 
 may be gilded ; promptness to fight for himself, or for 
 his friend, when aggrieved ; unblemished honesty, and 
 undaunted courage ; the strength of a lion, added to 
 the *stomach of a man. 
 
 But to return to our party. The body of the car- 
 riage w^as occupied by four dogs, as perfect specimens 
 of the canine, as were the nags which drew the vehicle 
 of the equine genus. Two of these were red Irish set- 
 ters, with coats as soft as silk, deeply feathered and 
 curly on the sterns and about the legs, with soft large 
 dark eyes, and lips and noses black as jet. The others^ 
 pointers, were very high-bred, one black as a coal, 
 without a speck of white, the other white as snow, wdth 
 liver-coloured ears and eye-spots, with a small dot of 
 tan over each eye, and a tan-shadowing round the muz- 
 zle — not your coarse, raw-boned, bull-headed, thick- 
 tailed, double-nosed Spaniards, but the true thorough- 
 bred English pointer, with tails thin, tapering, and 
 
 leonis 
 
 Vim stomacho apposuisse nostro. 
 
 Horace. 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 21 
 
 whiplike ; feet round as a cat's, strong loins, thin flanks, 
 deep chests — ^uilt both for speed and power, their coats 
 as sleek as satin, and the outline of their arched ribs just 
 showing through the skin, as if to tell the perfection of 
 their condition. 
 
 Two persons now made up the complement, seated in 
 the back part of the wagon, both smoking, the one a Ma- 
 nilla cheroot, and the other a short, very dingy-looking 
 clay pipe. The former was a gentleman a year or two 
 younger and three or four inches shorter than the driver, 
 with a countenance singularly expressive of fun, kind- 
 ness, and good humour. The other, as was clearly shown 
 by the silver hat-band and the crest buttons of his gray 
 frock coat, was the groom, a stout, short, hard-faced, 
 knowing-looking Yorkshireman, broad-shouldered and 
 duck-legged, with his black hair clipped bowl-fashion 
 round his bullet-head, and that so closely, that had you 
 laid your hand on it suddenly, it would have pricked you 
 like the bristles of a shoe-brush. 
 
 There was yet, to make up the company of bipeds and 
 quadrupeds, another of the latter order, in the shape of a 
 superb Scotch deerhound, of the tallest stature, shaped 
 like a greyhound, but of three times the weight and size, 
 shaggy and wire-haired like a terrier, and of a deep 
 tawny brindle, with coal-black eyes and muzzle. This 
 splendid animal trotted along quietly under the hinder 
 axle of the carriage, keeping up, as it would seem without 
 
22 Tin: deek:--talkkrs. 
 
 the slightest effort, with the slapping pace of the well- 
 bred trotters. 
 
 That was a merry party, and though the wagon, 
 splashed with the mud of some half-dozen different soils, 
 indicated that they had travelled many a mile since day- 
 break, there was nothing of fatigue or w^eariness to be 
 seen either in the bipeds or quadrupeds of the company. 
 
 The latter, as I have said, w^ere trotting along merrily, 
 full of play and spirit ; and it was evident, by the clean- 
 ness and brightness of their coats, that they had been 
 w^ell rubbed down and polished at their mid-day halting- 
 place. Their harness, too, which was of the slightest 
 make, compatible w^ith strength, plain black with covered 
 rings and buckles, and not a particle of metal visible, 
 except a small crest on the blinkers, had evidently been 
 cleaned likewise. The road had become dryer during 
 the afternoon, moreover, and the cattle w^ere not splashed 
 at all in the same proportion with the vehicle w^hich they 
 drew. 
 
 The men w^ere singing, jesting, and laughing all the 
 way, and the wild w^oods had rung for many a league with 
 their sonorous music; wdiile ever and anon, at his master's 
 bidding, the Yorkshire varlet would produce a key bugle, 
 w^hich hung in its leather case beside him, and wake full 
 many an echo with points of war, or hunting-calls, w^ildly 
 symphonious. 
 
 " Halloo! Tom," cried he who was handhng the rib- 
 bons suddenly, as he brought his strain to an end — " you 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 23 
 
 are falling asleep, you fat devil you ! come, wake up, 
 man, and tell us how far it is to this Dutchman's tavern, 
 you were telling us about." 
 
 " Well ! well I" responded the fat man, shaking him- 
 self; "it's four miles arter you git across the bridge there. 
 We'll be there torights. Why, Aircher, what is't ? 'Taint 
 half an hour nohow since we drinked — are you so dry 
 already you carn't wait a mile or two ? But I can tell 
 you, you'll be jest disappinted if you counts on g^ttin* 
 anything to drink at Dutch Jake's." 
 
 " Why not ?" asked the young man from the back 
 seat ; " why not ? Is Dutch Jake temperance ?" 
 
 "Jest about as much as you be, little Wax-skin !" an- 
 swered the fat man, laughing. " No, no I Dutch Jake 
 arn't temperance, nohow ; but if he was we'd have a 
 better chance, for I never did know yet a temperance 
 man, but he would licker on the sly like, and they doos 
 always keep the first best rum, I tell you. But bless 
 you. Forester, Dutch Jake don't keep nothin' as a pig 
 could drink ; leastwise I carn't, nohow." 
 
 " A very clear proof that a pig cannot !" said the 
 other, laughing joyously. 
 
 " Jest see now, lad, if I don't pay you for that ere 
 
 when we git out of this here rattletrap," replied Tom ; 
 
 but suddenly changing his note, he cried out sharply — 
 
 " But what the devil's been to do hereaways ? By the 
 
 clarnal ! Aircher, the bridge has fetched awav! One of 
 109 
 
24 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 the joists is gone, and three of them darned sleepers. 
 We 11 niver git acrost it." 
 
 " That we shall not, indeed," said Archer, pulling his 
 horses up. "What the deuce is to be done now? It is 
 eighteen miles back to the tavern, where the other road 
 branches off. We cannot get back there to-night, that's 
 clear enough ; besides, it's off our road. This is all your 
 fault, you old stupid porpoise ! You swore that this was 
 the best road." 
 
 " So it be," growled the fat man. " I niver see a 
 prettier nice road in all my life, nor you nuther, and I 
 couldn't tell nothin' about the darned bridge." 
 
 " Well ! hold the ribbons, while I jump out and look 
 at the ford. The brook is devilish full ! Sit still, all 
 the rest of you ; don't let the dogs jump out, Tim." 
 
 And with the words he sprang to the ground, ran down 
 the steep pitch, by the bridge side, and examined the ford 
 and the further shore with a practised and wary eye. 
 
 The deerhound followed his master to the brink, and as 
 he reached it feathered his long stern sharply, threw up 
 his head and snuffed the air greedily, and the next in- 
 stant would have plunged into the stream, had not his 
 master's rate checked him, before he had even wet his 
 fore feet in the turbid current. 
 
 The party in the wagon were too busily engaged in 
 thinking about the road to observe the action of the 
 <log ; and when Archer returned, Frank Forester asked 
 eagerly, 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 25 
 
 "Will it do, Harry?" 
 
 " I think so," returned Archer ; " at all events we'll 
 try it^but it is full and strong— there's no denying it." 
 
 "It's a darned hole, anyways!" said the fat man, 
 doubtfully. 
 
 "I know it is, Tom," said Harry, " but there is no 
 help for it, that I see. There's one thing in our favour, 
 a deer has gone across it within half an hour — " 
 
 " Then we'll go clear, sure enough," said Frank. 
 
 " That's not so sartain, nuther," replied Tom ; " a 
 deer harn't got no dog-cart at his heels." 
 
 " Had we not better all of us jump out, and make it a 
 lighter pull?" 
 
 " Not by any means, Frank," answered Harry. 
 " The weight is the only thing that will save us. If we 
 were empty, the stream would sweep us over the falls in 
 a moment." 
 
 "What do you say, boys, shall we try it? I will not 
 deny that we shall have a squeak for it ; but if we do 
 not, we must give up our trip." 
 
 " Oh! try it, I say !" answered Forester. " One must 
 die some day, and some one must die every day — as well 
 to-day as to-morrow. I say try it, by all means." 
 
 "I say so tew!" Tom took up the word. "But 1 
 arn't a goin' to be killed yit awhile, now I tell you — 
 there arn't no stream hereaways that can begin to 
 dreawn me !" 
 
26 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 *' I should think not," said Harry. " It might as well 
 undertake to drown a whiskey-barrel." 
 
 " T' rocks moight be bre-aking thee, ay reckon, tho'," 
 interposed Timothy with perfect gravity ; " ay've seed a 
 pooncheon stove in, vary quickly." 
 
 " You never saw a feather-bed broken, did you, Ti- 
 mothy ?" asked Forester. 
 
 " Noa, sur I" repHed Timothy, with a grin ; but his 
 face changed as they came down the summit of the 
 pitch, and looked down upon the red turbid stream, and 
 the steep rocky cleft below it, down which the waters 
 were raving fiercely. " Ey deary me ! but there's a heavy 
 fresh on ! ay doot we'se never win across't." 
 
 " We shall soon know," said Archer, gathering the 
 horses well in hand, and shaking loose the thong of the 
 four-horse whip. His face was grave, for he knew that 
 there was danger ; but his eye was bright, and his lip 
 firm. ^ 
 
 The stream was about twelve yards over. The leaders 
 entered quietly, and for two or three steps the water 
 did not reach their knees. But in the middle there was 
 a strong current, with a heavy swirl. 
 
 "Come, come! it is nothing, after all!" shouted 
 Frank, joyously. 
 
 " Arn't it though ?" replied Tom. And as he spoke 
 the leaders were weltering up to the saddle-laps, and 
 scarcely able to keep their footing. The next moment 
 they were swimming, and the wheelers plunged into 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 27 
 
 the deep hole, the wagon following them. The broad- 
 side of the carriage was now opposed to the full weight 
 of the torrent, for such indeed it almost was, just as all 
 the horses had relaxed their pull, and were floundering 
 heavily in the water. The hind wheels were swept 
 round, and the whole carriage began to yield sensibly, 
 and drive towards the rocks. 
 
 By this time the leaders were on sounder ground, and 
 in shallower water, and their pull dragged the w^agon 
 deeper into the hole, but at the same time helped the 
 wheelers somewhat, and enabled them to touch bottom 
 with their fore feet, at least. At this critical moment, 
 Harry rose quickly to his feet, gave his reins a shake, 
 uttered a shout, and brought his sharp lash down in a 
 figure of eight, striking all the four horses nearly simul- 
 taneously, and that so keenly that the blood sprang from 
 the leaders. 
 
 Together they all bounded to the lash, w^th snort and 
 plungt;, auiid the flashing water. Everything strained 
 and creaked about the wagon and the harness, as if it 
 must have gone to pieces. Had an}i:hing broken at that 
 moment, they must have been swept down the fall. 
 
 But nothing failed at the pinch. The next moment 
 the leaders were straining up the further bank — the 
 wheelers had found good foot-hold on the gravel-bank. 
 A violent jolt followed, as the fore-w^heels were dragged 
 over a block of stone at the water's edge, when crack — 
 crack — both the traces of the near leader parted ; and 
 
28 TPIE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 almost at the same moment, with a shivering crash, the 
 off horse's bar broke in the eye. The leaders were 
 loose but for the reins ; and for a moment, though hap- 
 pily the wagon was stuck fast, and out of the stream's 
 way, all was in confusion. 
 
 Not a word had been spoken since Harry's shout, but 
 now all was merriment and bustle. 
 
 "Jump out, Tim! Jump out quick; to the leaders' 
 heads! Never mind the water." 
 
 The hardy groom was out in a moment. He scram- 
 bled through the water, and up the Lank, as fast as his 
 duck legs could carry him. 
 
 He had the horses by the bits in a second, and Harry 
 flinging loose the leaders' reins, which were unbuckled, 
 they were led off and tied to a tree, in less time than it 
 takes to describe it. 
 
 "What's to be done now^, Harry?" asked Frank. 
 " How the deuce is this to be righted ?" 
 
 " You'll see ! Sit still, that's all ! Get away, lads !" 
 he added, touching the wheelers gently with the whip. 
 
 A steady pull released the wagon from the stones, 
 and drew it up the bank to the spot where Tim stood 
 with the leaders. 
 
 " Now look alive, lads. Forester, just unhitch that 
 spare set of bars from the back of your seat — there, 
 don't you see them ? Get out the spare traces, Timothy, 
 and the wrench from the harness-trunk — that's it, look 
 alive, for it's growing dark apace." 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 29 
 
 And by dint of deliberate activity, and well directed 
 exertion, not ten minutes had elapsed before the broken 
 bars were removed, and the spare set substituted; 
 fresh traces buckled on, and the fragments of the old 
 ones thrown into the bottom of the w^agon. 
 
 Within a quarter of an hour they were rattling away 
 along the road all a-taunto, and w^ithout a trace of their 
 recent accident, merry and noisy, through the fast-fading 
 tw^ilight which waned betimes, in the deep gorges of 
 those woodland hills. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NIGHT-DRIVE. 
 
 The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore. 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 The sun had entirely set before Archer's gallant 
 team had whisked the shooting wagon over the summit 
 of the first ridge beyond the scene of their quickly-re- 
 paired accident. 
 
 There was still, however, a lingering crimson flush 
 on the western sky, against which the broad-backed 
 mountains stood out erect, massive in purple majesty, 
 as if they had perpendicular ramparts of granite. High 
 overhead, the stars were twinkling clear and bright in 
 the dark azure vault, up which the thread-like crescent 
 of the young moon was climbing, with one large lus- 
 trous planet at her side. 
 
 The atmosphere was pure and breathless, and so still 
 that not a sound of any kind was to be heard, except 
 the quick clatter of the hoofs on the frozen road, and 
 the slight rumbling noise of the well-built carriage. 
 
 About a mile distant from the broken bridge, the 
 
VHE DEERSTALK Ens. 31 
 
 by 7oaJ which crossed it entered a broader and more 
 beaten way, lying at right angles, or nearly so, to its 
 previous course, and running through a glen of the 
 same character with that through w^hich the travellers 
 had been journeying, though somewhat wider, and 
 watered by what might be called a river. 
 
 In order to reach this valley, the road they had been 
 follow^ing, which hitherto had wound in and out among 
 the hills, through twenty little dells and basins, crossing 
 at most but the low^er spurs of the wooded ranges, here 
 breasted by the main western ridge, scaled it boldly in 
 a series of steep zigzags, partly scarped in the hill- 
 side, partly supported by piles and breastworks of 
 timber. 
 
 The branches of the trees crossed overhead, forming 
 a roof like that of a gothic aisle; and, as is usual, the 
 frosts of autumn had taken much less hold on the foli- 
 age w^here the upland soil was dry, although rich, than 
 it had done in the sour and watery swamps of the 
 valley. 
 
 Not a ray, therefore, penetrated the dense canopy of 
 boughs, and the road was as dark as a closed room at 
 midnight. 
 
 Harry was laughing and talking merrily as they left 
 the line of the valley, and, to say the truth, took no note 
 of the darkness so long as the road continued straight. 
 But after it had ascended, perhaps a hundred yards in 
 a rie'ht line, there was a sharp and awkw^ard angle. 
 
32 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 The leaders, as is usually the case, tried to turn too 
 quickly, and as the side of the road to which they were 
 bearing was that which fell abruptly down into the valley, 
 Harry met them with a' firm hand, holding them to the 
 hill, though unable to see a foot in front of the wheels. 
 Luckily, at this moment, the fore wheels rose over a 
 little mound, plunged down on the other side, and were 
 followed by the hind wheels, with the same uneasy jerk- 
 ing motion. The next instant, Archer pulled up the 
 horses, backed them the least in the world, and they 
 stood motionless, with their traces slackened, and the 
 vehicle prevented from backing down hill by the jog, as 
 it is called, or little gully, made to prevent the wintry 
 rains from washing the steep roads, as is generally the 
 case in those mountain regions. 
 
 " Tim !" exclaimed Harry, quickly, almost before 
 the wagon had become motionless. 
 
 "Ay! ay! sur," answered the sharp-witted York- 
 shireman. But to Tom Draw's huge amazement, and 
 something, be it added, to that of his master likewise, 
 the short sonorous response came from the heads of the 
 horses, and not, as both had expected, from the back 
 seat of the dog-cart. 
 
 " Tim, we must have the lamps," said Harry ,*well 
 knowing that in the nil admirari lies half the secret of 
 being well and promptly served. <« The road is as 
 <lark as a black dog's mouth. I cannot see the gray 
 wheeler's ears, let alone the leader's." 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 33 
 
 <« Ay's \vaiTant it," replied the groom. "Ay kenned 
 that varra weel, afore at you quit t' valley. Soa thinks 
 ay to mysen, there's be a fash enow, wi' t' leaders, an' 
 ay'll be needed at t' heads on 'em laike. Soa I joost 
 slipped out ahint t' wagon, and well it is, ay wot, ay 
 thousrht on't, for t' leaders wud hae been doon t' bank 
 in anoother minnit." 
 
 <' Quite right, Tim, quite right!" said his master', 
 approvingly. '-'- 1 was thinking of something else, or I 
 would have lighted up before we got into the woods. 
 Now look alive, man ; you have got candles in the 
 lamps, I hope ?" 
 
 "Ay! ay! sur ; two i' t' great lamp unner t' foot- 
 board, and one in each of t' others. Boot t' matches 
 are i' t' tool-chest, yonner. Now, Measter Forester, 
 gin you'll please joost joomp out, an' stand to t' leaders 
 whaile ay get 'em, we'll have laight enoof enow." 
 
 " Good Lord ! jump out, indeed ! I shall break my 
 neck, and go head-over-heels down the crags," he re- 
 sponded, half in fun, half in earnest, and with a sort of 
 dolorous tone, that showed he was far from beinsr sure 
 that his words would not be realized. 
 
 <■( Get out on the off-side, Frank, between the wasron 
 and the hill ; you'll do well enough there. That is it." 
 
 " What you say right is perfectly true, Harry," re- 
 plied Frank, scrambling out of tlie bearskins, in which 
 he was rolled up so snugly, and making for the horses' 
 heads, which he reached in a minute. " But what the 
 
34 THE DL'.EnSTALPiERS. 
 
 plague have you done with old Tom ? I haven't heard 
 d word — no, not an oath, even — since we stopped. 
 Punch him in the ribs, Harry." 
 
 "No! no!" shouted the fat man, lustily. "Don't 
 you dew that — don't you dew that, I say. I swan, Fll 
 fix you, little Wax-ski i, when we gits to Jake's." 
 
 "Oh! you're aAvake now% are you.'^" replied the 
 other, laughing. " Was he asleep, Harry.?" 
 
 "I rather think not, Frank," answered Archer, "for 
 I have heard a noise for the last ten minutes, not quite 
 so loud as Niagara, it is true, but about as loud as 
 Paterson Falls, I should say — a constant, gurgling fall, 
 as if of a good strong river ; and there's a devil of a 
 smell of rum here now." 
 
 " 'Taint rum," responded the fat man, indignantly, 
 " it's good old apple-jack. Little Wax-skin, there, would 
 give his eyes for a sup of it. That's good ; there comes 
 tlie lamps," he added, as Timothy, after bustling about, 
 and jingling for some minutes in the tool-chest, made 
 his appearance with a small glass lanthorn, and some 
 matches, by aid of which he soon lighted the lamps ; 
 and these, with their strong magnifying-glasses, made 
 the whole road as clear as day, and cast a broad w^hite 
 glare upward upon the many-coloured leaves, which 
 formed the vault overhead. 
 
 "Don't put it out, Tim," said his master, "we'll 
 blow a cloud directly. That will do, Frank, lad. Just 
 turn their noses into the road again, and then jump in 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 35 
 
 and make yourself comfortable. The big cigar-case is 
 under your seat, there ; just hand it out and help your- 
 self, and then pass it forward ; I have not one left in 
 my pouch." 
 
 " Now, then !" he added, after a minute's pause, du- 
 rinsf which three Manilla cheroots w^ere kindled, and a 
 rich odour of the Indian weed diffused through the 
 cold still atmosphere. 
 
 " All's right ! " responded Timothy, and sprang in a 
 moment into his seat, just as Archer, gathering his reins, 
 and reaching his whip from the socket, uttered a low 
 soft whistle, and a " Get away, lads !" 
 
 There w^as a rattling of bars, a clash of hoofs, and a 
 pebble or tw^o flew high into the air ; and then, without 
 more ado, the four fleet horses w^ere in merry motion. 
 
 The clear light flashed along the road, silvered the 
 mossy bolls of the huge trees, and cast strange waver- 
 ing sheets of alternate shade and lustre through the deep 
 forest-aisles. Several times, as they were w^hirled along 
 at ten miles an hour, a heavy flapping of huge wrings, 
 and a wild dolorous screech from some tall tree, an- 
 nounced that their lamps had aroused some large night- 
 bird from its slumbers ; and once, just as they cleared 
 the woods and issued into an open field on the moun- 
 tain's brow, a long protracted howl rose fearfully into 
 the silence, not, as it would seem, above fifty yards be- 
 hind them. 
 
 " What in the devil's name is that ?" said Frank, 
 
36 TIIK DKKKSTALKKRS. 
 
 hastily, laying his hand almost instinctively on the but 
 ui" one of the long duelling-pistols, a brace of which, in 
 leathern holsters, were attached to each seat ready for 
 instant service. 
 
 " Yon's a varra oogly noise, is yon !" exclaimed Ti- 
 mothy, astonished, which by the way was for him a 
 rare state of mind. 
 
 " I swan that's a wolf .'"shouted Fat Tom, answering 
 the question an^ the observation at the moment of their 
 utterance. For all three spoke simultaneously. 
 
 " A wolf, is it ?" said Forester, quietly removing his 
 hand from the weapon, for he knew the habits of the ani- 
 mal, though he had never seen one, too well to anticipate 
 any danger. " I did not know you had any of the var- 
 mints here." 
 
 "A wolf!" exclaimed Timothy, making a plunge 
 under the bearskins for his master's rifle ; '' heart aloive I 
 w^e's be all eaten oop i' noa time." 
 
 " Nonsense, Tim," replied Harry, laughing, " there's 
 no danger. Wolves never meddle with men here nowa- 
 days. But I did not think there were any left in this 
 quarter." 
 
 " Nor I nuther," interposed old Tom, scratching his 
 head and cogitating. " Nor there aint been none hereaway 
 these six or eight year. We're a goin' to have a hard 
 winter now, I reckon. Leastwise they say hard w^eather 
 to the norrad brings down the tarnal critters this away. 
 But Fm right glad to hear him howl, hows'ever." 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 37 
 
 "Glad I why the deuce are you glad, Tom?" asked 
 Harry. And this again was rather an unusual occur- 
 rence ; for so well did Archer understand the bent of the 
 fat worthy's genius, that he but rarely asked an expla- 
 nation. 
 
 " 'Caze when you hears a wolf howl, Aircher," he 
 made answer, "you may be sure game is either very 
 plenty or very scace, one or other. Now it aint nohow 
 possible as that chap should be druv by hunger to make 
 that 'ere dismal screechin', for everybody here knows 
 that the woods is full o' possums and rabbits. So it must 
 be 'caze deers is plenty that he's hollering ; that's why 
 I says I'm glad, Aircher. I'd a thought, too, you'd have 
 had sense enou2:h to a knowed it." 
 
 " May it not be that it's because possum's plenty that 
 he's ' hollering' ?" asked Frank slyly. 
 
 "No!" answered Tom very gruffly, as he inhaled a 
 long puff of smoke, and blew it out again slowly. " No, 
 and you knows it." 
 
 "Indeed I do not, Tom," replied Frank, with a laugh 
 which he vainly endeavoured to stifle. " I know nothing 
 about wolves nor possums either. Do tell us." 
 
 " You lie, boy ! you dew know. And you'll raise no 
 foolin' out o' me, I can tell you. So quit. Now, Timo- 
 thy, git out your old bull's horn and blow up. Them 
 lights as you see down yonder is at Jake's, and I can 
 see by the way they're a fixin' and manoeuvrin' that 
 they're a gittin' things fixed to go to bed torights. Put 
 
38 THK BKl.RSTALKKRS. 
 
 on, Harry ' put on, boy ; it's all good road now, though 
 it he's down hill a leetle." 
 
 It certainly was down hill a little^ for the road lay at 
 an angle of some forty -five degrees. Yet Harry took 
 the old Trojan at his word, and put the nags along, and, 
 holding them well in hand, it was with the jingling of 
 trace and curb-chains, the clatter of the bars, rattlino^ 
 against the wheelers' houghs, and the roll of the rapid 
 wheels, that they thundered down the slope ; while loud 
 above all the din rose the clear mellow notes of Tim 
 Matlock's well known bugle, making the gorges of the 
 Blue Hills to resound with the unusual cadences of " God 
 save the king." 
 
 As they came wheeling round the angle, into the 
 broader valley, they passed a foaming mill-dam, barring 
 the little river, overhung by a dozen large weeping wil- 
 lows, the foliage of which was still full and verdant. 
 A large, calm pool, reflecting the bright starry skies 
 and the dark tufted masses of the precipitous hill which 
 walled its further side, lay close to the left hand of the 
 road, and was but slightly separated from it by a rough 
 fence of unbarked cedar poles from the mountain. On 
 the right, all the level space between the road and the 
 other hill, not exceeding fifty yards in width, was covered 
 with a beautiful second-growth of oak, hickory, and 
 maple, overhanging a thick underwood of cranberry 
 and wintergreens, interspersed with the glossy leaves of 
 the calmia, the azalia, and the rhododendron. 
 
 » 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 39 
 
 Among this rich woodland was the little tavern, to 
 which they were bound, nestled so closely that its ex- 
 istence might have remained unsuspected until the tra- 
 veller was almost in front of its long, low^, Dutch portico, 
 formed by a projection of the shingled eaves, and of its 
 stately signpost. 
 
 Harry, however, knew the locale right well, and haa 
 his horses in hand ; and as he shaved the trunk of a 
 huge chesnut, which formed the boundary post of the 
 little green before the door, he pulled up instantly, amid 
 the light of a dozen candles and lanthorns ; for the well- 
 knowm sound of his key-bugle had roused all the inhabi- 
 tants, and it was in the midst of a deafening shout of 
 cacophonous laughter, and of <' Ky ! Masser Harrys !'* 
 announcing half the company, at least, to be Dutch 
 negroes, that the friends jumped to the ground, their 
 night-dave pleasantly concluded. 
 
 110 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HUNTER'S YARN. 
 
 By night I heard them on our track, 
 Their troop came hard upon our back, 
 With their long gallop, which can tire 
 The hound's deep hate and hunter's fire. 
 
 Mazeppa. 
 
 The room, into which our sporting friends were in- 
 troduced by Dutch Jake, himself, w^as a long and narrow 
 apartment occupying the whole breadth, and one-third 
 of the length of the whole house. It was lighted by 
 day by six small windows, three on each side, and by 
 two narrow glass-doors, that through which our sports- 
 men had gained admittance, and a second directly 
 opposite to it ; and by night, as in the present in- 
 stance, by half a dozen sconces, with marvellously dirty 
 tin reflectors, attached to the wall, each containing one 
 large home-made tallow candle. Had this been all tlie 
 illumination, however, of the long, dingy, low-ceiled 
 room, it would have barely sufficed to make the darkness 
 visible ; but, as it was, a huge pile of hickory logs, blaz- 
 ing and snapping in a vast open fire-place, sending broad 
 
 40 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 41 
 
 sheets of tiame up the wide-throated chimney, and great 
 volumes of smoke, at intervals, into the room, diffused 
 both vrarmth and lustre through the place. 
 
 At the right hand of the door by which they entered, 
 was the bar itself, with a narrow, semicircular counter, 
 protected by stout wooden bars, and a sliding-door. 
 The shelves of this sanctum were garnished with sun- 
 dry kegs of liquor, painted bright green, and labelled 
 w^ith the names of the contents, in black characters on 
 gilded scrolls. These, with two or three dull-looking 
 decanters of snakeroot-w^hiskey, and other kinds of 
 << bitters ;" a dozen heavy-bottomed tumblers, resem- 
 bling in shape the half of an hour-glass, set up on the 
 small end ; a wooden box of whity-brown crushed sugar, 
 which professed to be white, and a considerable array 
 of tobacco-pipes, constituted all the furniture of Jake's 
 bar, and promised but little, as Tom Draw had fore- 
 warned his young associates, for the drinkableness of 
 the Dutchman's drinkables. 
 
 Unpalatable, however, as they appeared, and as they 
 would probably have turned out on a trial, to the refined 
 tastes of our sporting epicures, it seemed that they 
 were looked upon in a very different light by the assem- 
 bled magnates of the neighbourhood, who, in great 
 numbers, and great glee, came thronging towards the 
 door to gape at the new-comers. 
 
 They had just ceased from a regular breakdown 
 Dutch dance, which they had been plying most uproari- 
 
42 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 ously and most industriously to the obstreperous braying 
 of a fiddle, worked by a fifty-horse-power coal-black 
 white-headed negro, assisted by a shrill squeaking flute 
 and a jingling tambourine, shrieked on and hammered, 
 with proportionate energies by his sons, as it was easy 
 to perceive by their precise similarity in hue and feature 
 with the old fiddler. 
 
 All the three, despite the difference of hue and race, 
 appeared to be on the best and most intimate footing 
 with all present ; and the whole crowd, seeing that the 
 new-comers were neither friends nor acquaintances, 
 crowded to the bar, and took advantage of the tempo- 
 rary cessation of the breakdown, to liquor on the largest 
 scale and in the most promiscuous fashion, men and girls, 
 black and white, altogether. 
 
 " Hallo I Jake !" exclaimed Fat Tom, as he entered, 
 affecting to stare about as if he could hardly see, " what 
 in creation makes it so all-fired dark in here ? why, I 
 
 carn't see my way to the bar, if so be there be one." 
 "Veil, Mishter Traw," responded the old Dutchman, 
 
 " I ton't see tat it pe so tark— put te teyfll ! it most pe 
 
 te shmokes, for de tamn'd chimbly" — 
 
 " No ! no ! it arn't, Jake," interrupted Tom, " it arn't 
 
 the smoke nor the chimney, nohow. I'll nose it out 
 
 torights, I tell you. It's the darned niggers, I guess. 
 
 It's the niggers, sartin I why, there's enough on em to 
 
 make the moonshine dark !" 
 
 This most characteristic speech on the part of the 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 43 
 
 jolly publican, called forth a burst of good-humoured 
 and resounding laughter from the black portion of the 
 company, the blackest of whom are wont in mirthful or 
 ancrry objurgation to vituperate one another as " brack 
 niggas ;" but it was by no means so complacently received 
 by the \\hite company, many of the younger members 
 of which were aware that out of the Dutch settle- 
 ments it is looked on as a reproach to hold the slightest 
 intercourse in hours of relaxation with the free negro, 
 much more to eat at the same board, or drink in com- 
 pany with him ; and several of these were not a little 
 disposed to resent the bold jest of the bluff speaker. 
 
 Little cared jolly Tom for that, however ; but seeino- 
 the bended brows and lowering looks of some of the 
 gigantic Dutchmen, he would in all probability have 
 proceeded in a strain yet more offensive, and w^ould very 
 likely have produced a general row, if Harry, who 
 entered the room a moment after him, had not interposed 
 promptly and effectively to preserve the peace. 
 
 " The poor old man's very drunk, gentlemen," he 
 said, with his frank and cheery smile ; " a thino-, I'm 
 sorry to say, that happens to him very often ; but he's 
 mad now into the bargain, which I don't w^onder at, for 
 he wanted to kiss a very nice young wench as we came 
 along, and she wouldn't have him on any terms I" 
 
 "Kiss the dev— " Tom began to reply, furiously 
 indignant, but he was interrupted by about a dozen 
 voices, eager and loud in inquiry into particulars; for so 
 
44 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 seriously had Harry spoken, that half the young men 
 believed him to be in earnest. 
 
 "Do tell," said one ; " where was't?" 
 
 " I ton't know of no naice yong venches on de roat 
 to York," cried another. 
 
 "I cannot exactly tell you, gentlemen," replied Harry, 
 still preserving his gravity admirably ; "as I am not 
 well acquainted with your country, or with the names 
 of places. But I think I can describe it to you. You 
 all know the old beaver-dam, I fancy, and the bridge ; 
 well, just beyond that there's a big hill ; and, beyond 
 that again, a deep wet swamp ; and across that a moun- 
 tain, with a toll-gate on the far side — " 
 
 "Yes, yes — I know^ — I know ferry veil. Dat's 
 Hans Schneider's dole-gate. Veil ! dere's no yong vench 
 dere I" 
 
 " No, no — not there — but in a little hovel about two- 
 thirds up the mountain. The road was so steep that I 
 made the fat man get out and walk up, and just as he 
 got opposite the door, she came out with a tin pail to 
 fetch some water, and he tried — " 
 
 " Mein Got ! It's old Shuno dat he meansh ; old 
 Tave's fraw i" 
 
 " Tousand teyfils ! She pe olter nor a huntert year." 
 
 " Ant oglier as de ferry Olt Nick !" 
 
 " Tid he, py Cot ! vant to kish olt Shuno ? Bonder 
 ant teyfil ! vat a peasht I" 
 
 "Ant she voultn't haf him no vays. By Got! I 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 45 
 
 ton't vonter as lie pe mat mit de colour peoples, arter 
 tat." 
 
 What were Fat Tom's emotions, at this strange inven- 
 tion of Harry's, it would be difficult to say ; for in the 
 first instance his face turned as red as fire, and his eyes 
 gleamed angrily from beneath the overhanging pent- 
 house of his heavy gray eyebrows; but at the numerous 
 wondering expressions of the credulous and astonished 
 Dutchmen, at the abhorrent and disgusted looks of the 
 girls, many of whom were very young and plump and 
 pretty, and above all at the intense delight of the ne- 
 groes, who stamped, and yelled with laughter, and 
 positively rolled on the floor in their mad glee, the old 
 man's face relaxed. A joke was always too much for 
 him, even if it w^ere, as in the present instance, at his 
 own expense. 
 
 "Well, well," he said, "boys, t'aint jist right to 
 tell tales on the party. See if I beant quits with you 
 afore long ! But so be you has told, I don't see but 
 I've got to stand treats for^the company. Jake, you 
 darned old cuss, look alive, carn't you? and make a 
 gallon of hot Dutch rum, torights ; and if that ar'n't 
 enough for all hands, make two. If I carn't kiss 
 wenches, I'd be pleased to see if some of these all-fired 
 pretty white gals won't be a-kissin' me, afore the 
 night's done, anyhow." 
 
 " / von't den, anyhow, for fon !" said a very pretty 
 little blue-eyed girl, with a profusion of long Hght brown 
 
46 THE DLER STALKERS. 
 
 curls, who had been listening with her bright eyes dis- 
 tended to their utmost. 
 
 " Yovfun /" exclaimed Fat Tom, intentionally misun- 
 derstanding her meaning, and making at her with a 
 moment's hesitation. "By the Etarnal ! 'tarn't for fun 
 I kisses, I'd have you to know — it's in right down most 
 all-fired airnest." 
 
 " No, no, old man !" interposed Harry, stepping 
 between Tom and the ^irl. "Don't be afraid, my 
 pretty lassie, he shall not touch you, he's too old alto- 
 gether for such a pretty girl as you." 
 
 " Ant ferry moche too ogly !" answered the girl, 
 laughing joyously. 
 
 " Here's metal more attractive, perhaps," said Harry, 
 seizing Frank Forester, and dragging him forward as 
 he spoke. 
 
 " No, no. He mopen't mettle mit me neider," said 
 the girl, still laughing. " Fd all as fon pe a kissing te 
 old cat, mit all tat nashty hair on his lip, shost as pad, 
 mine Got, nor fon olt racoon I" 
 
 A fresh burst of laug-hter, from the whole room, now 
 followed this peculiarly acceptable repartee, in allusion 
 to the thick yellow moustache which covered the whole 
 of Frank's upper lip; and under cover of the laugh, 
 Harry snatche'l a hearty kiss from the laughing lips of 
 the little coquette, saying, as he did so — 
 
 '' It's hard if one of the lot won't suit you I" 
 
 " It ain't you den, mit your imputence," she answered. 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. • 47 
 
 blushing a good deal, and fetching him a crack on the 
 side of the head, which made his cheek tingle, and his 
 ear hum for half an hour. " Kiss me again, den, von't 
 you ?" 
 
 "Certainly, if you wish it," answered Harry, nothing 
 daunted — and suiting the action to the w^ord, he caught 
 her in his arms, and bestowed upon her, not one, but 
 half a dozen long and sonorous busses ; w^hich, as he 
 afterward asseverated, though she affected to struggle 
 and resist with all her might, she returned with good 
 interest. 
 
 Most of the company laughed loudly at this interlude, 
 which seemed to pass as a matter of course ; but one raw- 
 boned young Dutchman, who had been dancing w-ith the 
 girl half the evening, began to look something more than 
 minacious, when the Dutch rum made its appearance, 
 and the rich, spicy odour dissipated in a twinkling his 
 fast-rising choler. 
 
 The strange compound of Santa Cruz rum, boiling 
 water, allspice, browm sugar, pepper-corns, and— start not, 
 gentle reader, w^hen I add — butter, passed around with 
 clattering of glasses, gurgling imbibition, and loud laugh- 
 ter, under cover of which our friends stole aw^ay, by a 
 door close to the fireplace, leaving the rustic ball to re- 
 commence with new din and spirit, after an interruption 
 which had turned out so acceptable to all parties present. 
 
 " Now, Jake," said Harry to the landlord, who had 
 ushered them into a sort of sanctum, in a projecting wing 
 
^ THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 of the old stone tavern, which had a separate com- 
 munication with the rest of the house — "you can get 
 us something to eat, I suppose; we have not had a 
 mouthful since one o'clock, and are half dead with hun- 
 ger. You got my letter, I suppose, to tell you we would 
 be here to-night?" 
 
 " Sartin," replied old Jake. I cot it yeshtertay. 
 Mein Cot! yesh. I can kive you fresh eggs and ham, 
 and de shmoke peef, petter as nothink!" 
 
 " Well, look you here, we have brought up some cold 
 meat with us. Do you have some potatoes roasted in 
 the ashes, and let us have some of your best butter, and 
 brown bread, and let my man Timothy do whatever he 
 wants to do in the kitchen. Send a couple of your boys 
 to take care of the horses ; and let another run over to 
 Dolph Pierson's, and tell him we are here, and want 
 him to come up to supper." 
 
 " Tolph vas here not an hour since, ant I dolt him as 
 you vas a comin' ; ant he'll pe here mitout my sendin de 
 poy. Veil ! I'll ko stret avay, ant pid de women volks 
 purn de potatoes, ant sent de pooter ant de preat, ant 
 make de hot vater for de poonch — you'll pe a vantin 
 poonch — any ting elshe, Mishter Archur ?" 
 
 " Yes ! have you got any ice ?" 
 
 « A plenties!" 
 
 " Send in a good big tub full of it, broken small. Do 
 that first — will you, Jake?" 
 
 " I fill," answered the old man, " and see, here cooms 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 49 
 
 de man Dimoty. You tell him vat you'll pe a van ting, 
 ant fe'll pe a doing it raight anyvays." 
 
 And as he spoke he left the room — while the little 
 Yorkshireman entered it from the offices, clean-rigged, 
 and washed already, and followed by two negroes, car- 
 rying, the one a couple of champagne baskets, and the 
 other a large and apparently heavy chest of live-oak 
 board with iron at 'the corners. Timothy himself bore 
 a smaller case of Russia leather, which he deposited on 
 a side table, the negroes arranging their burthens on 
 either side the fire-place. 
 
 " Noo, bring t' goon caases in," said Timothy, " and 
 t' little leather troonk wi t' shot and t' powther," and 
 then turning to Harry, he continued — " T' horses is 
 sorted doon bonnily, and all four on 'em are tooking into 
 1' oats laike bricks, Measter Aircher. You'll be a wan- 
 tin' soopper noo, ay reckon, at least, ay sure mysen, 
 ay's varra hoongry." 
 
 "So are we, Timothy; and I trust you have some- 
 thing eatable in the travelling-case ; for there is nothino- 
 to be got here but bread and butter." 
 
 " Ay've got twa brace o' t' cauld larded partridges — 
 a brace o' t' soommer dooks ready for broiling — a cauld 
 ham simmered i' champao^ne — and a goose-paie, 'at ay 
 maad mysen, fit for t' Queen, God bless her!" 
 
 " Excellent well, indeed, Timothy. You are a ca- 
 terer worth a thousand. Ah! here comes the ice. Now 
 look sharp, get out four bottles of champagne, and stick 
 
50 THE D.'^.ERSTALKERS. 
 
 them into that tub. We'll keep the wood-duck and 
 the goose-pie for to-morrow. We'll have a brace 
 of the larded grouse, and the ham to-night. You go 
 and see to the roasting of the potatoes, and make a 
 good big omelet. Have you brought any parsley with 
 you ?" 
 
 " Lots on't, sur — and a doozen or twa little ingans, 
 and soom tarragon. Ay's mak a first-rate omelet, ay's 
 oophaud it." 
 
 " Very well, then look quick about it, and leave us 
 the keys. We'll get the things out, and lay the table, 
 this time, for it's growing late. What liquor have you 
 brought, beside champagne ?" 
 
 " A gallon demijohn o' t' paine-apple room, 'at Measter 
 Forester aye laikes sae weel, and anither o' t' auld pale 
 Cognac ; and anither yet o' t' Ferintosh to fill t' dram 
 bottles." 
 
 " Let us have the pine-apple rum, and some water 
 screeching hot. Now, mizzle. Come, Frayk, pull that 
 big round table into the middle of the room ; I'll open 
 the boxes." 
 
 And suiting the action to the word, he unlocked the 
 large chest, which displayed at the top a shallow tray 
 containing a supply of cutlery and napkins ; a coffee-pot 
 and spirit-lamp, and a small breakfast service, with a 
 silver stew-pan and gridiron. This tray removed, seve- 
 ral tiers were discovered of bricrht tin boxes of various 
 sizes, piled one above the other, such as are used 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 51 
 
 by restaurateurs for sending out hot dinners to their 
 customers. 
 
 Just as this was done, the door opened and a buxom 
 Dutch serving-girl entered with a large table-cloth of 
 very coarse but very clean home-made linen, followed 
 by another carrying several plates'and dishes empty, in 
 addition to a magnificent brown loaf, and butter, like 
 that set before Sisera, in a lordly dish. 
 
 "That's my good lasses," exclaimed Harry. "Now 
 if you'll get us the big punch-bowl and ladle, and bring 
 us a kettle of hot water, we'll see to all the rest. Now, 
 Frank, the big dish. It will just hold the ham. Look 
 you here, is it not a fine one ? Pure Yorkshire, and how 
 beautifully brazed I There, set it at the head of the 
 table ; and give me that other dish for the larded grouse; 
 we shall sup as well as if we were at home, at my 
 shooting-box. Now, then, I'll open the leather case, 
 and get out the glass and siller ; do you fetch the napkins 
 and cutlery, and see that you fold the napkins in right 
 form, or Timothy will laugh at you. It's no lark to me 
 to eat a good supper with two-pronged steel forks, or to 
 drink champagne out of their vile glass an inch thick." 
 
 '« I'd be all-fired sorry," interposed Tom, " to be a 
 bottle of champagne afore you, if so be that you were 
 a bit dry, in a quart pewter mug, or an earthen " 
 
 " How should you like to be a pea, Tom," Frank 
 interrupted him, " and he with a two-pronged pitch- 
 fork ?" 
 
52 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 " It 'ud take a most onmighty pitchfork to hoist me, 
 if I war a pea." 
 
 " You'd make a tolerable marrow-fat, I think, Tom. 
 I'd bet on your taking a premium at the agricultural." 
 
 " It would require an infernal gizzard to digest him," 
 said Archer, laughing. 
 
 " Why, yes," said Frank ; '' I don't think he'd agree 
 very well with the man who ate him ; as poor Sidney 
 Smith wished the new Bishop of Zealand that he might 
 o, when he was on the eve of sailing for his diocese." 
 
 ' ' Better a darned sight be in a diocess, whativer it may 
 be, nor on the pint of a pitchfork," said Tom grinning. 
 " But come, boys, come — I could eat — I could eat — " 
 
 " Could you eat a young child with the small-pox, 
 Tom, as Alick Bell says, when he's peckish?" asked 
 Frank. 
 
 " You darned etarnal little beast," replied Tom, 
 aimins: a back-handed lick at him, which would hav9 
 felled an ox, much more little Frank, if he had not 
 dodged it. " You'd spile a horse's stomach, w4th your 
 all-fired filthy talking." 
 
 "Hear! hear!" exch-imed Harry. " If that does 
 not beat Satan preaching against sin, I will say no moie, 
 now or for ever. But I do wish Tim would come, and 
 that Dutch hunting fellow." 
 
 " Shall you wait supper for the hunting Dutchman?" 
 
 " Wait h — !" cried Tom, savagely. "I'd see every 
 Dutchman out \)f all Jarsey, and Pennsylvany arter that, 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 53 
 
 in the tother place, afore I'd wait a minute. Wait 
 supper ! The boy's mad ! This comes o'what he calls 
 breedin' I Darn all sich breedin', I say. It'll breed no- 
 thin' I knows on, if it beant maggots in a body's brain." 
 
 By this time, Frank had disposed four plates in orderly 
 array, with upon each a neatly-folded napkin, and a 
 thick hunch of brown bread in its snowy bosom ; had 
 placed the ham and cold grouse, with their carving- 
 knives and forks in bright symmetry beside them, and 
 was looking on with an air of extreme satisfaction, while 
 Harry drew out of the leathern casket a set of neat 
 castors, replenished with every sauce and condiment 
 that Bininger can furnish, each bottle secured, like a 
 smelling-flask, by a screw top of silver. These placed 
 on the centre of the board, he produced next two silver 
 salt-cellars, a dozen table-spoons, and as many forks of 
 the same metal, and last not least, four tall pint beakers 
 of clear crystal, and four yet more capacious tumblers 
 of New-Castle cut glass. 
 
 A moment or two afterward, the bowl made its ap- 
 pearance ; the kettle was hung upon the crane above 
 the glowing pile of hickory ; and the lemons and loaf- 
 sugar were disposed near the China bowl, whose vast 
 gulf was destined soon to entomb them. 
 
 Then the door was again thrown open, and Tim 
 Matlock made his entree, bearing a tray with fouj- wax 
 candles lighted, the hot potatoes, and the omelet aux 
 fines kerbes, sending forth volumes of odoriferous steam, 
 
54 THE DCEnSTALKKRS. 
 
 which alone could have won an anchorite from his 
 fasting. 
 
 It was a curious scene — such a scene as never before 
 had that small room, with its narrow casements, and 
 dark wainscoting, and home-made rag carpet,witnessed. 
 Cookery which Ude would not have despised ; gam^ 
 such as Hawker would have given five years of life to 
 shoot ; wine, that would have been called excellent at 
 Crockford's ; silver, of Storr and Mortimer's best fash- 
 ion ; glass, such as might glitter worthily on the queen's 
 table ; and wax candles, shedding over the whole their 
 pure strong lustre. 
 
 And then for the guests — the two elegant, well- 
 formed, high-bred gentlemen, who would have been 
 esteemed an acquisition to the most courtly company ; 
 and the grotesque, original, rotund, rough-visaged, 
 tender-hearted yeoman ; who had the racy wit of Jack 
 Falstaff without his abject cowardice, his sensuality 
 without his selfishness, his honest bearing without his 
 hollow heart — that king of native sportsmen! — that 
 trump of trumps ! — honest, brave, witty, kind, eccen- 
 trical Tom Draw of Warwick. 
 
 And now, just as the supper was all ready, and the 
 appetites of all still readier, the door communicating 
 with the bar-room, or ball-room rather, was thrown 
 open, and thereat entered one whom I must stop a mo- 
 ment to describe — Dolph Pierson, the Dutch Hunter. 
 It might be almost sufficient to say, that this man was 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 55 
 
 in all external parts, and in many mental qualities, the 
 very converse of Tom Draw — but he is a real picture, 
 and as such, I will paint him. 
 
 He was three inches above six feet in height, and of 
 bone and frame which were almost gigantic, w^hereas 
 honest Tom was nearly a foot shorter than his rival 
 sportsman, and so light of bone, that it was difficult to 
 understand on what principle the vast mass of flesh 
 which he bore about with him was supported ; much 
 more how it was moved, at times, with so much agility 
 and sprightliness. Then again it appeared, at first sight, 
 that there was no flesh at all between the angular mas- 
 sive bones, and the parchment-like skin, of the new- 
 comer — while honest Tom's hide was distended almost 
 unto bursting, by the preternatural bulk of " too, too 
 solid ya^," which cushioned his whole form, and made 
 every line about him, if not precisely a line of beauty 
 at least a line of sinuous rotundity. 
 
 Dolph Pierson's face and features were as sharp and 
 
 as angular as the edge of an Indian tomahawk ; his 
 
 brow was low, but neither narrow nor receding ; on the 
 
 contrary, it displayed considerable amplitude in those 
 
 parts which phrenologists are pleased to designate as 
 
 the seats of ideality ; and some prominence in the point 
 
 which the same learned gentry assert to contain the 
 
 organs w^hereby man appreciates the relations between 
 
 cause and effect. Across tliis forehead the skin was 
 
 drawn as tight as the parchment of a drum, indented 
 111 
 
'56 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 only by one deep furrow, running from temple to tem- 
 ple. His hair was thin and straggling, and what there 
 was of it was as white as the drifted snow, as were also 
 two tufts of ragged bristles, which stood out low down oi 
 the jaw-bone, a little way below his mouth, alone re 
 lieving the monotonous colour of his otherwise whisker 
 less and beardless physiognomy. 
 
 As if to set off the whiteness of his hair, however 
 and of those twin tufts, his eyebrows, which were of 
 extraordinary thickness, were as black as a crow's 
 wing, running in a straight line, without any arch above 
 the eyes. 
 
 The eyes, themselves, which were very deeply set, 
 and, in fact, almost entombed between the sharp pro- 
 jection of the brow, and the almost fleshless process of 
 the cheek-bones, were dark, twinkling, restless, never 
 fixed for a moment, but ever rowig, as if in quest of 
 something which he was anxiously seeking. His nose 
 was of the highest and keenest aquiline, starting out 
 suddenly at one acute angle from between his eyes, and 
 then turning as abruptly downward, in a line parallel 
 to the face, the point at the curvature, or summit, ap- 
 pearing as if it would pierce through the skin. 
 
 The nostrils were rather widely expanded, and their 
 owner had a habit of distending them, as if he were 
 snuffing the air ; so that many of his neighbours believed 
 that he actually was gifted with the hound's instinct of 
 following game by the scent. 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 57 
 
 His mouth, to conclude, was wide, straight, thin- 
 lipped, and so closely glued down upon his few remain- 
 ing stumps of teeth, that it seemed as if it had never 
 been intended to open ; and indeed it was the abode of 
 an organ, which, if not endowed with great eloquence, 
 had at least a vast talent for taciturnity. 
 
 Such were the features of the man who entered the 
 room, walking in-toed, like an Indian, with long noise- 
 less strides, with a singular stoop, not of his shoulders, 
 but of his neck itself, and with his eyes so riveted to 
 the ground, that' it appeared very difficult for him to 
 raise them to the faces of those he came to visit. 
 
 He was dressed in a thick blanket coat, of a dingy 
 green colour, with a sort of brown binding down the 
 seams, and a sash of brown worsted about his waist. 
 On his head he wore a sort of skullcap of gray fox-skin, 
 with the brush sewed across it, hke the crest of a dra- 
 goon helmet, about four inches of the white tag waving 
 loose like a crest from the top of the crown. Two cross 
 belts of buckskin were thrown across his shoulders, that 
 on the right supporting an oxhorn, quaintly, carved, and 
 scraped so thin that the dark colour of the powder could 
 be seen through it in many places ; and that on the left 
 garnished with a long wooden-handled butcher-knife in 
 a greasy scabbard. A tomahawk was thrust into his 
 sash, its sharp head guarded by a sort of leathern 
 pocket, and from the front of the girdle was suspended 
 a pouch of otter-skin, containing balls, bullet-mould. 
 
l8 THE DEERSTALKFRS. 
 
 charger, greased wadding, and all the apparatus neces- 
 sary for cleaning the heavy rifle which he carried in his 
 hand, and which, at least in his waking hours, he was 
 seldom, if ever, known to lay aside. 
 
 To complete his costume, his feet were shod in In- 
 dian moccasins, and his legs encased in stout buckskin 
 leggins, supported by garters rich in embroideries of 
 porcupine-quills, and laced over his rough homespun 
 pantaloons. 
 
 Archer was standing; at the head of the table whet- 
 ting his carving-knife on an ivory-handled steel, prepa- 
 ratory to an attack on the ham, w^hen the old hunter 
 entered ; but as he saw the gaunt raw-boned figure, he 
 laid it down instantly, and stepped forw^ard with ex- 
 tended hand to greet him. 
 
 " Ah ! Dolph, how are you ? I am glad to see you, 
 man ; I was afraid you would not have come in time for 
 supper." 
 
 The hunter raised his eyes for a moment to the ex- 
 pressive face of the speaker, but before it had dwelt 
 there a moment perusing the w^ell-known features, it 
 had wandered away to decipher the visages of the other 
 tenants of the seats at the table. A pleasant smile, 
 however, dimpled his cheek and twinkled for an instant 
 in the dark eye, as he pressed Harry's hand cordially, 
 and made reply. 
 
 " Middlin' well, Mister Aircher. I supped six hours 
 ago — how is't with yourself?" 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 59 
 
 << What if you did, boy ?" interrupted Fat Tom, be- 
 fore Archer couhi reply. " You must have got ongodly 
 hungry in six hours, I guess. Sit by — sit by — darn all 
 sich nonsense." 
 
 '' I niver eats only twice of a day," replied the hunter, 
 without a smile, and without moving a muscle of his 
 face. " And I niver eats hog, nohow, nor birds nei- 
 ther," he added, quietly, after a moment's pause, during 
 which he had looked over the fire, the gun-cases, and all 
 the baggage in the room, not excluding Timothy, whom 
 he seemed to regard as the greatest curiosity of the 
 whole. No one, however, had seen him look toward 
 the table, the burthen of which he named so accurately. 
 
 <' Do you drink iver, Dolph?" asked Tom, half jeer- 
 ingly, in the intervals of masticating the w^ing of the 
 cold ruffed grouse, with a modicum of the thin- shaved 
 ham. 
 
 " When liquor's good, and Pm adry !" 
 
 "Niver, when you're not adry, Dolph ?" 
 
 "Niver!" 
 
 " Then you're the darnedest stupid Dutchman I iver 
 corned acrost," replied the fat man. " Leastways onless 
 you're always dry, like I be. Another glass of that 'ere 
 champasrne, Timothy." 
 
 " Come, sit down, sit down, Dolph," said Harry, 
 " and if you really will not eat anything, at least take a 
 drink with us." 
 
 " Well, I don't care if I do !" responded the man of 
 
60 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 few words, depositing his rifle in the corner of the room, 
 and taking his seat, quietly, between Archer and Tom, 
 who was already steeping his soul in the third beaker 
 of dry champagne. 
 
 « What will you have, Dolph ? Champagne, or — " 
 
 " Some of the rum, Mr. Aircher," answered the man, 
 with perfect readiness, while Timothy stared at him 
 with inexpressible astonishment, more than suspecting 
 him to be what he would have called in his native dia- 
 lect, a *«waise mon," meaning thereby, neither more 
 nor less than a wizzard. 
 
 At a glance from his master, however, the Yorkshire- 
 man so far recovered himself, as to hand a square case- 
 bottle to the hunter, who forthwith decanted about half 
 a pint into the largest tumbler, and, disdainfully waving 
 away the water, which Tim offered to him, made a cir- 
 cular nod to the company, muttered '< Here's luck I" 
 and swallowed it at a gulp. 
 
 Then he shook his head approvingly, winked his eye 
 hard, and snuffed the air repeatedly, and after that 
 mute but expressive pantomime, held forth the empty 
 tumbler to Timothy, with a gesture towards the pitcher, 
 indicating that he desired it filled with water. 
 
 When he had received, however, the pure element, 
 he paused, as if unwilling to remove the delicious aroma 
 from his palate. 
 
 " I knowed it," said he, thoughtfully, as he agai^ 
 
THE DELRSTALKERS. 61 
 
 shook his head ; "jest as I 'spected, adzactly. Them's 
 prime sperrits." 
 
 At this unusually long speech, Harry smiled, knowing 
 his man, and made answer — 
 
 "Since you like it, had you not better repeat the 
 dose?" 
 
 " Not this night, if I knows it." 
 
 By this time, Frank, who had never before met this 
 original, and who had been studying his characteristic 
 answers, inquired, with a view to drawing him out — 
 
 " Pray, Mr. Pierson, if you never eat hog or birds, 
 may I be allowed to ask what you do eat — if it's not 
 impertinent?" 
 
 "It's not imperent at all," said Dolph. "I eats 
 a'most any wild crittur what runs ; deer, or bar meat, 
 or possum, may be." 
 
 "Did you ever eat a skunk, Dolph ?" asked Harry. 
 
 " A skunk killed dead at the fust lick, and well clean- 
 ed, 's not bad eatin'," interposed Tom. "Say, Dolph, 
 did you iver eat wolf?" 
 
 "NJver — nor no dog nuther. Mister Draw!" replied 
 the hunter, somewhat testily, as if he fancied they were 
 quizzing him — " No, nor no calf, nuther. I don't think 
 much," he added, looking at Tom, as if to pay him off, 
 "of a man, what eats calf, nohow." 
 
 "Nor I, Mr. Pierson, nor I," put in Frank with 
 great alacrity, delighted to find an auxiliary in one of 
 his crotchets, which was an absolute contempt for veal 
 
62 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 in all its combinations. "I never eat it myself ; in fact, 
 I had about as soon eat dosf." 
 
 " I niver knowed a raal sportin' man as wouldn't!" 
 answered the hunter, evidently gratified by Frank's ad- 
 herence to his opinion ; whereupon that worthy resumed, 
 filling his glass with champagne — 
 
 " Well, if you will not join us, allow me to drink your 
 health. I have heard of you from Mr. Archer, often." 
 
 '< Yes, Mr. Aircher knows me," said the hunter, 
 quietly, and apparently unaware of the intended com- 
 pliment. 
 
 t'Do tell, Dolph — " Tom put in, at this moment, 
 what my poor friend, J. Cypress, Jr., was wont to call 
 his lingual oar, with the evident intent of kicking up a 
 row, " Do tell us, Dolph — you said you niver eat no 
 wolf — did no wolf niver eat you ?" 
 
 " Niver ! — whar's your eyes ? Don't you see me ?" 
 
 <« Guess you'd a made 'em sick. They couldn't eat 
 you, nohow." 
 
 " They comeJ darned nigh to it oncet, inyhow." 
 
 t'Did they? By George! you never told me that," 
 said Harry. 
 
 " I'm no great things at talking. If you want to hear 
 bragging, you must set Draw agoin'. Well! well! 
 there was wolves them times." 
 
 " There are wolves 7iow,''^ replied Forester. 
 
 The hunter looked at him doubtfully, yet with a 
 *vistful eye. 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 63 
 
 « Not hereaways," he said, at length. " Leastwise I 
 hain't heerd none, nor seen no track of none, this six 
 year. Yet I some thought to-day they mout a gotten 
 back, like." 
 
 " They have got back," said Frank earnestly. <■<■ We 
 heard one howl, to-night, scarcely a mile hence." 
 
 Doubtful, perhaps, as to the certainty of Frank's in- 
 formation, and science in wood- craft, Dolph cast a quick 
 glance of inquiry at Harry ; and on receiving his affirma- 
 tive nod in reply, brought down his hand with a heavy 
 slap on his sinewy thigh, and cried aloud, in tones far 
 more animated than he was wont to use — 
 
 " Darnation, if I isn't glad on't !" 
 
 t< Why?" exclaimed Forester, hoping to detect old 
 Draw in some blunder, as to his previous reasoning. 
 
 " Caze I hates, wust kind, to be mistaken — and I half 
 thought last night they'd got back agin." 
 
 " And pray, what made you think so ?" 
 
 " Why, I camped out nigh the Green Pond last 
 night, seein' I'd sot some lines for pickerel ; and bein' 
 it was sorter cold, I kinneled up a fire, and sure enough, 
 an old doe, with two well-grown fa'ans at her side, 
 comed right up into the circle of the blaze, and 
 scrouched down in the fern, not ten yards from my 
 camp-fire. I knowed they must a' been skeart orfully 
 to come down on a man o' purpose." 
 
 "How do you know that they came on purpose?" 
 asked Frank, more intent on fathoming this man's, to 
 
64 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 him, incomprehensible sagacity, than even on gaining 
 information. 
 
 " How did I know? — Didn't they come up wind on 
 me ? They knowed I was there a mile off — and they 
 did right, by thunder ! I'd not a hurted a hair on 'em for 
 a hundred dollars." 
 
 " I'm sure you would not, Dolph," replied Harry, 
 " But come — Timothy has cleared away the eatables, 
 and I am going to brew a bowl of hot rum punch. You 
 must break your rule for once, Dolph, and take another 
 glass to oblige me ; and blow a cloud, and spin us a yarn 
 about the wolves coming nigh to eating you." 
 
 " I'd do a'most anything to obleege you, Mister Ar- 
 cher, and you knows it. But I'd ruther not drink, no- 
 how — and that's along o' the wolves comin' so nigh as 
 they did to eatin' me, too, I tell you." 
 
 " Well — I'll press no man to drink against his better 
 judgment," said Harry, as he brewed the fragrant 
 compound. 
 
 " I knowed you wouldn't, when I telled you I'd ruther 
 not." 
 
 " Well, as I do not, you will blow a cloud with us, 
 and spin us the yarn," said Archer. " Forester and I 
 
 are dying to hear it." 
 
 '* Sartin I will," replied Pierson ; " and I'll blow a 
 cloud too ; but the yarn's like to be a short 'un." 
 
 '' Pass up your glasses, boys ; let me help you. This 
 is prime, and after a cold night-ride and a cold supper, 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS 65 
 
 it will do none of us a thought of harm. Hand the 
 cheroots round, Timothy. Those are good, Pierson." 
 
 " I smokes in an Injun pipe alius, with Kinnekin- 
 ninck. I larnt that, when I hunted years and years 
 agone with the Mohawks in these hunting-grounds. 
 Ah ! they was hunting-grounds in them days !" 
 
 " Now then for your story," said Harry, when the 
 pipes were alllighted, and the punch tasted and approved. 
 " Begin as quick as you can, and after that w^e will to 
 bed instantly — for we must be afoot early." 
 
 " Sartin we must, if we means venison. Well, well! 
 It's nigh forty years agone, it is, and I could shoot some 
 then, and was right and smart and strong, I tell you-^ 
 but I did spree it oncet in a while like — not to say that 
 I was a drunkard— for sometimes I'd go weeks and 
 months on cold water ; but then, agin, I'd git right hot, 
 I tell you, for a week, maybe, and spend half my airnin's 
 like, and be good for nothing for a month arterward. 
 Well, well ! there was few houses in them days, nor no 
 clearin's nigher than the Coshocton turnpike. There 
 was no village here, nor no store nigher than Jess 
 Wood's, clear away beyant Hans Schneider's toll-gate. 
 I lived here all alone, where I lives now. I'd a putty 
 nice log house, and a log stable for old Roan, and a lean- 
 to for my dogs, jest on the pond's edge. Well — it was 
 winter time, and winters in them days was six times as 
 cold as they is now. There was nigh six foot of snow 
 on the level, and in the hollows it was drifted twice ab 
 
66 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 deep, all on it, I reckon. Well— deer was a hundred 
 where you'll find ten these times, and bar a thousand on 
 'era. I'd had good luck all winter, and it was nigh the 
 holydays, and I'd got out o' lead ean a'most, and putty 
 short of powder. It fruz ivery night sharper nor nothin,' 
 and there was sich a crust as mout ha' borne an elephant 
 — but there warn't elephant them days — seems to me 
 they grows plentier as bar grows scacer, and beaver 
 ain't none left. Well — I rigged up a jumper, and loaded 
 it with peltry, and hitched up old Ronn, and offed to Jess 
 Wood's — twenty mile, I guess — thn ugh a blazed wood 
 road, meanin' to git me a keg or t a^o of powder and 
 some bars of lead, sell off my plunder, and be back 
 same night. Off I went sartin — but when I comed to 
 Jess's, there was a turkey-shoot you see, and a hull 
 grist o' boys, and we shot days, and drinked and played 
 nights — and to be done with't, 'twas (.he third day, putty 
 well on for night, when I started, and I patty hot at that. 
 Well — it was moonlight nights, and I got along .smart 
 and easy, till I got on the hill, jest abore the beaver dam. 
 The beaver dam warn't broke then, and the pond was 
 full, but it was fruz right sharp and lurd, and I wen* 
 over it, at a smart trot, and was thinkiii' I'd be hum in 
 an hour, when jest as I was half ways over I heerd a 
 wolf howl, and then another, and then another, and in 
 less time than I can tell you, there was thutty or fawty 
 of them devils a jabberin' as fast as iver yviu heerd 
 Frenchmen, on my trail ; and afore I was well acrost, I 
 
THE Dr^ERSTALKERS. 67 
 
 could see them comln', yelpin' and screechin' all in a 
 black snarl like, all on 'em together, over the clear ice. 
 Well— I whipped up old Roan, and little whip he needed, 
 for when he heerd them yell, he laid down his ears, and 
 laid down his belly to the snow, and by thunder ! didn't 
 he strick it though I Over rough, over smooth, up hill and 
 down hollow — and oncet I thought we should a run clear 
 out of hearin' on 'em. But goin' up the big mountain, 
 w^hen we was nigh the crown, I carn't tell how it was 
 adzactly, but pitch down we went into a darned rocky 
 hole, and the fust thing I knowed I was half head over in 
 the snow, and the jumper broke to etarnal smash, and old 
 Roan gone ahead like the wind — and I left alone to fight 
 faw^ty howlin' devils, and putty hot at that. Well, I tuk 
 heart, and fixed my rifle, and as they come a yelpin' up the 
 hill, I drawed stret, and shot one down, and run like thun- 
 der, aloadin' as I went, for I knowed as the bloody devils 
 would stop to tar' the one I'd wounded into slivers, and 
 while they was a tar'ing him for sartin, their screeches 
 mout a' made a body's hair stand up on his head like — but 
 they soon quit that fun, and took my trail agin in airnest. 
 Well, I got loaded, and I w^ent to prime, and darned if 
 my flint hadn't got smashed to pieces. I felt in my 
 pouch, in my pockets — not a flint I I w^as hot, as I tellecl 
 you, when I quit Jess's, and left them on the bar. Oh, 
 warn't I in a fix ! and there warn't no big trees nuther ; 
 and if there had a been, it was so bitter cold I thought 
 a man must a' died afore it was mornin'. But I thought 
 
68 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 it warn't no use to say die, no how — so I run for the 
 biggest tree and clum it. It warn't thicker nor my body 
 much, a stunt hemlock, not over fifteen feet, or eighteen 
 at most to the fust limb, and none higher that would 
 bear my weight, and a tight match if that would. Well, 
 I clum it — and there, from eleven o'clock of a winter's 
 night, I sot perishin' with cold and a'most dead with 
 fear — I arn't easily skeart nuther — with them fawty 
 devils howlin' under me, and lickin' their bloody chaps, 
 and glarin' with their fiery eyes, and ivery now and then 
 a big 'un jumpin' within three feet of the limb I sot on, 
 and the limb crackin' and the tree bendin', 'at I thought 
 it 'ud go ivery minnit. Day broke at last, and then I 
 hoped they'd a quit — but not they. The sun riz — still 
 thar they was a circlin' round the tree, madder nor iver, 
 foamin' and frothin' at their jaws, and oncet and agin 
 fightin' and tearin' at one another. Gentlemen, I w^as a 
 young stout man, when I clum that hemlock, and my 
 hair war as black as a crow's back. When I fell down, 
 for come, down I didn't, I was as thin and as bent, ay I 
 and as white-headed as you see me. Since then, I 
 niver drinked only when I war dry, and then niver over 
 oncet in the mornin' and oncet agin at night." 
 
 " But how, in Heaven's name ! did you escape them ?" 
 asked Forester, who was interested beyond measure in 
 the wild narrative. 
 
 "By Heaven's help!" answered the hunter, so- 
 lemnly. " Some chaps chanced on old Roan's carcass in 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 69 
 
 the woods, arter they devils killed him, and knowed 
 whose horse he war, and tuk the back track, and come 
 down on the mad brutes from to leeward, with seven 
 good true rifles. They killed five on 'em at the 
 fust shot, let alone what they wounded ; and the rest 
 made stret tracks ; but I didn't see it. For at the crack 
 of the fust shot, my head went round and round, and I 
 pitched down right amongst them. But they was 
 skeart as bad as I was, and hadn't no time to look arter 
 me. Well, Mister Aircher, my tale is telt, and my 
 pipe smoked, so I'll go lie down on my barskin by the 
 kitchen fire, and you'll be for bed, I guess — for we 
 must rouse up bright and airly. I telled Jake to have 
 breakfast two hours afore sunrise." 
 
 " We loill go to bed. Thank you for your tale. I 
 will never ask you to drink again. Good-night." 
 
 ''Good-night." 
 
 And catching up his rifle, he left the room without 
 any further words. 
 
 « That is a singular and superior man," said Forester, 
 as he closed the door. 
 
 " Yes, indeed is he !" replied Archer. 
 
 << Putty smart for a Dutchman," said Tom. 
 
 "He speaks better English than you, Tom," an- 
 swered Forester. 
 
 " Better H ! He's as Dutch as thunder ! Good- 
 night, boys." 
 
 And so they broke up the sederunt. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE STILL-HUNT. 
 
 i\Iark ! How they file adown the rocky pass, — 
 Bright creatures, fleet, and beautiful, and free,^ 
 With winged bounds that spurn the unshaken grass, 
 And swan-like necks sublime, — their eloquent eyes 
 Instinct with liberty, — their antlered crests, 
 In clear relief against the glowing sky, 
 Haught and majestic ! 
 
 The autumnal morning was yet dark as midnight, 
 when Dolph Pierson, arising from his bearskin, awoke 
 Harry, who ere long had the whole house afoot and 
 stirring. The kitchen clock was striking four, when 
 the party assembled in the little parlour in which they 
 had supped but a few hours before ; yet so smartly had 
 Timothy bestirred himself, that not only had all the 
 relics of the supper been removed, but a hearty extem- 
 poraneous breakfast had replaced it on the large round 
 table. 
 
 There was the Yorkshire ham, which had not suffered 
 
 so deeply by the last night's onslaught, but that enough 
 
 remained to furnish forth sundry meals even for hunters' 
 
 appetites. There was the huge brown loaf; the dish 
 
 70 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 71 
 
 of golden butter ; the wooden bowl, full to the brim 
 with new-laid eggs, wrapped in a steaming napkin ; 
 and last, not least, two mighty tankards smoking with 
 a judicious mixture of Guinness's double stout, brown 
 sugar, spice, and toast ; for to no womanish delicacies 
 of tea and coffee did the stout huntsmen seriously in- 
 cline. 
 
 As they entered the room, the old Ijunter, who was 
 busily employed drying a pound of rifle-powder on a 
 pewter plate, heated on the wood embers, raised his 
 eyes from his occupation, and kept them riveted on the 
 figure of Harry Archer, for a far longer period than it 
 was his wont to bestow on anything of mortal mould. 
 
 After gazing at him for some moments thus, he 
 nodded his head approvingly, as who should say " Not 
 such a bad turn-out, after all!" and then resumed his 
 somewhat perilous occupation of stirring the powder in 
 the plate with the point of his long wood-knife, as he 
 held it an inch or two only above a glaring bed of 
 hickory embers ; but neither on Frank Forester, nor on 
 old Tom Draw, did he vouchsafe to bestow one second's 
 observation. 
 
 And in truth, Harry in his hunting-dress was an ob- 
 ject worthy of some consideration, so perfect was every 
 part of its equipment, both in its fashion, and its adapta- 
 tion to its peculiar use. 
 
 On his head he wore a cap exactly like that of an En- 
 glish whipper-in, or huntsman, with this exception only, 
 112 
 
72 THE DEERSTALKERS^ 
 
 that it had a projecting rim behind, to shelter the back 
 of his neck from rain, or the dewdrops which might fall 
 from the branches, and that in lieu of being black, it 
 was of a deep umber-brown, to correspond with the 
 colour of the autumnal leaves. 
 
 The black silk handkerchief, knotted about his 
 sinewy neck, displayed not an inch of white linen above 
 it, and was itself partially concealed by a buckskin 
 hunting-shirt, exquisitely wrought by the hand of some 
 Indian maiden, far in the forests of the west. Prepared 
 with skill peculiar to those wild tribes, this garment 
 combined the suppleness, the warmth, and the dura- 
 bility of leather, with the high finish and rich colour of 
 the best broad-cloth. That colour was a nameless hue, 
 between brown and purple, approaching nearly to the 
 tints of the copper beech, or rather to something between 
 that and the cinnabar brown of the buckeye, or horse- 
 chesnut. It was fringed handsomely, and embroidered 
 in places with black porcupine-quills ; and was girt 
 about his waist by a black leather girdle, with a 
 buckle of blue steel, supporting a pouch of martin skin, 
 and a hunting-knife with a buckhorn hilt, and a blade, 
 a foot in length, of the best Sheffield steel. He wore 
 no tomahawk ; but his powder-flask, made of a buffalo 
 horn mounted with dark blue steel, was slung across his 
 left shoulder by a plaited whip-thong of black leather. 
 
 His nether man was clad in a pair of Pike and El- 
 phick's elaborate buckskins, which had bestridden the pig- 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 73 
 
 skin many a day in Leicestershire, and soared in flying 
 leap over the bankfull Whissendine. Not now, however, 
 "were they resplendent as of old in the glory of white pipe- 
 clay, but wore a more harmonious if less striking hue of 
 dull olive-green, as did the leggins of the same material, 
 which reached to his knee and covered the fastenings of 
 his firmly-wrought Indian moccasins. 
 
 Two things only remain to be noticed of all his 
 accoutrements — that in the buckskin garter which se- 
 cured the buskin of his right leg he had a short strong 
 two-edged dirk, the knee-knife of the Highlander; and 
 that he bore a superb double-barrelled rifle by Moore, 
 that prince of makers, warranted, at two hundred yards, 
 when held by a steady hand, to put both balls through 
 the same bull's eye; a feat many a time and oft per- 
 formed by its present owner. 
 
 In spite of its weight, which was nearly twenty 
 pounds, it was both a manageable and handy weapon ; 
 for not being very long, and the metal being heaviest at 
 the breech, it was so admirably balanced in the hand, as 
 to fatigue the arm far less, w^hether at a trail or a pre- 
 sent, than the much less ponderous but longer rifle of 
 the Dutch hunter. 
 
 The barrels w^ere browned to a nicety, and all the 
 mountings tempered in wood-ashes to so deep a blue, 
 that, like all the rest of Harry's dress, there was no 
 fear of a stray sunbeam glistening from any brilHant 
 
f4 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 point, and so betraying- his approach to the fearful 
 quarry. 
 
 Tom Dra\v wore as usual his dark home-spun suit, 
 with heavy boots, and a dark gray felt hat, which garb, 
 if it possessed no beauty, had at least this advantage, 
 that it was inconspicuous and quiet. His buckshot car- 
 tridges — for he eschewed the rifle — and copper flask 
 were buried in the vast pockets of his voluminous un- 
 mentionables, and from a slit in the side of these, like 
 that in which a carpenter carries his wooden rule, peered 
 the stout haft of a gigantic butcher-knife. 
 
 His other weapon was the huge ten-pound double- 
 barrelled shot-gun of twelve-gauge, with which he was 
 wont to exterminate all genera of game, from the minute 
 sandpiper to the huge brow^n bear. 
 
 Frank had as usual been exceedingly elaborate, but 
 as usual also somewhat unfortunate in his attire, for, 
 inclining somewhat at all times to the kiddy in the style 
 of his dress, he had unluckily leaned to it at the very 
 time of all others when it is least admissible, and had 
 mounted a hunting-shirt and cap, the latter adorned 
 with a waving bucktail, of the brightest pea-green 
 plush, with fringes of the same colour. His buck- 
 skin breeches were of as fair a white as he would have 
 donned to meet the Quorn at Billesdon Coplow ; and 
 his legs were encased in stout russet gaiters, and his feet 
 shod in strong ankle-shoes. His knife was silver hilted ; 
 his rifle, which was of much smaller calibre and lighter 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 7j 
 
 fashion than his friend's, and his powder-horn, were 
 silver-mounted ; and, in a word, his whole appearance 
 was much fitter for a foncy ball, than for a still- hmit in 
 the forest. 
 
 Archer knew all this, it is true, quite as well as the 
 hunter, and felt its absurdity quite as keenly ; yet, 
 though with Forester he had been for years on terms of 
 more than brother's intimacy, he had given him no hint 
 on the subject, and as they sat down to thr sociable 
 breakfast, he suffered his eye to run over Forester's gay 
 dress, when he knew that Dolph was observing him, and 
 then catching the eye of the latter, addressed to him an 
 almost imperceptible motion of the head, w^hich the old 
 hunter understood as well as if a volume had been 
 spoken, though he could not conceive the reason m it. 
 
 The fact was simply this, that Harry was so well 
 acquainted with his friend's character, that he did not 
 doubt for the moment, that if Frank should be advised 
 to don a graver garb, his pride of woodcraft would take 
 alarm, and he wouLl swear that deer were attracted by 
 gay colours, and would persist in wearing them as ae 
 rigueur; whei'eas, if left to himself, he would probably 
 discover his error in one day's hunting, and learn by his 
 own experience that which he would surely refuse if 
 urged by another. 
 
 All this, at an after period, Harry explained duly to 
 the old hunter, who merely shook his head in reply, and 
 marvelled to his heart's content ; but at the moment, 
 
76 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 beyond the glance and slight gesture, no sign or word 
 was exchanged between them. 
 
 The ham and eggs were speedily despatched, and the 
 tankards drained to the lees by all except old Pierson, 
 who quietly addressed himself to a bowl of milk, pro- 
 duced by mine host at Dolph's especial desire. This 
 done, some sandwiches were prepared, the dram-bottles 
 filled, the rifles and shot-guns loaded and capped, the 
 contents of powder-flasks and pouches investigated, and 
 then all was pronounced to be ready for a start, and that 
 before they had been half an hour out of their beds, and 
 w^hile the stars were yet shining brightly in the cerulean 
 sky, and ere one flash of dawn had appeared in the 
 easter» horizon. 
 
 " Tim," said his master, " it will be of no use for you 
 to go with us to-day, and it w^ill make too many. So 
 look well to the nags, will you ? and see if you cannot 
 get us something eatable for dinner. Did you not say, 
 Dolph, that you had some venison ?" 
 
 " I telled my boy to bring 't down the fust thing. 
 He'll be here afore it's light. Yes, its a prime saddle; 
 two inches of fat all over 't." 
 
 " Divide it into haunches, Timothy, and roast it your- 
 self. You know how — covered with puff-paste." 
 
 "Ay! I ken brawly. But w^hat o'clock must I 
 have t' haunch ready ? It winna do to keep't waiting 
 loike." 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 77 
 
 " No, indeed, it will not. What time shall we be 
 back, Dolph ?" 
 
 " Not afore seven, if then ; there's no saying.'' 
 " At eight, then, we will dine ; make some soup, if 
 you can get either beef or mutton. And hark you, I 
 daresay you can catch some yellow bass, or pickerel ; 
 there are both in the pond here — you can take my 
 tackle. If you cannot, see and buy some eels, and let 
 us have a matelot. With the soup and the haunch, 
 that will do. Have the champagne frozen to-night. 
 And now go and let Smoker loose." 
 
 " What's vSmoker ?" asked the hunter. 
 
 '^ The best deer-hound Ame^:"ican eyes ever looked 
 upon. Fresh from the Highlands — a present from Mr. 
 Scrope, by the w^iy — almost as great a deerstalker as 
 yourself, Dolph." 
 
 " Do you mean to take him along?" 
 
 " Not, if you say ' No.' But if w^e wound a buck, 
 he'll pin him certainly before he's gone a mile." 
 
 *' I dar' say ; but his yell will lose us ten for every one 
 he catches. Beside, the Dutchmen hereaw^ay will shoot 
 him sartin. They're death on all hounds, and wun't 
 have no huntin' here nohow, 'less it's still-huntin'." 
 
 " Smoker never hunted except still in his life. If 
 you catch him speaking once to the hottest scent, I'll 
 give the Dutchmen leave to shoot him. If they shoot 
 him without leave, Brown Bess here," and he tapped 
 the breach of his ponderous rifle as he said the words. 
 
78 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 "will take part in the conversation; and when she 
 barks, she is apt to bite, you know." 
 
 <'I know. But that wouldn't bring the dog back, 
 nuther. Hows'ever, if he runs mute, and fights mute, 
 they won't harm him, nor carn't, nuther. What breed 
 is he?" 
 
 '« He will run mute, fight mute, and die mute, I'll 
 warrant him ; though I hope not the last, yet awhile." 
 
 " Well, what you says, you says ; and what you says 
 you knows ; so I'm agreeable. But you haven't telled 
 me what breed he is." 
 
 " You shall see ; you shall see. Here, Smoker, Smo- 
 ker!" and at the word, the door, which had been left 
 ajar, flew violently open, and a noble Scottish wire- 
 haired deer-greyhound came bounding into the room, 
 and at a gesture from its master, reared erect, laying 
 his shaggy paws upon his shoulders, and gazing into 
 his eyes, face to face. 
 
 '<By thunder! he's a beauty," cried the impassive 
 hunter, for once moved by surprise and admiration out 
 of his wonted quietude. '^ He could a'most pull down 
 a heifer, single-handed." 
 
 "He has done that same! and no deer can stand 
 before him one half mile in the open." 
 
 t'l dar' be sworn on't. Great Jehu! what a leg ! 
 my old arm's a fool to it. And for his chest, it'll out- 
 measure ar' a man here." 
 
 "Not forgetting Tom Draw," said Harry, laugh- 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 79 
 
 ing, '< who only measures sixty-two inches round his 
 chest, while Smoker is just sixty-seven." 
 
 <« I niver see sich another." 
 
 «'Nor I. Yet I have seen scores of the breed — I 
 might almost say handreds. No, indeed, Smoker is a 
 non-such, and he's as good as he's handsome. Well, 
 shall we take him ?" 
 
 '< 'T would be a sin to have him hurt, I swan ; and 
 sartin as death, if he hollers on a trail, some of them 
 Dutch fellows will make him smell H — !" 
 
 '« They may, if he hollows !" 
 
 " Take him, then, sure ! I'd give ten dollars to see 
 him pull one down." 
 
 << If we wound one, you shall see it." 
 
 "By thunder! thenl'll wound the very fust one I 
 shoots at this good day." 
 
 " Then you won't bring home nauthen," sneered 
 Tom Draw. 
 
 "Jest twice what you will, with t'other gentleman, 
 I'll stand treats," cried Dolph. 
 
 " Done !" shouted the fat man. 
 
 And " Done !" replied the hunter, confidently ; and 
 then he added, "but we'll git nothen, none of us, if we 
 stays here much longer. Let's up traps, and track it." 
 
 No sooner said than done ; five minutes more and 
 they w^ere all in the open air, under the calm, cold 
 azure canopy of heaven, with its myriads of bright stars 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 twinkling with that peculiar brilliancy which they at all 
 times derive from a slight touch of frost. 
 
 The mountains, on either side the narrow glen, 
 loomed up superbly dark, like perpendicular walls, of 
 the deepest purple hue, opaque, solid, earthfast, against 
 the liquid and transparent blackness of the starry firma- 
 ment. The broad, clear mill-pond at their base lay 
 calm and breezeless, with no reflection on its silvery 
 breast, save the faint specks of purer whiteness which 
 mirrored the eternal planets, motionless, sad, and silent, 
 yet how^ beautiful. The dew^s were still falling heavily, 
 and there w^as in the air, among the trees, on the wa- 
 ters, that undefinable soft rustling sound, which yet is 
 scarce a sound, w^hich we cannot determine, even w^hen 
 sensible of it, whether we hear or feel ; but other sound 
 of man or beast there came none through that deep and 
 narrow valley. Ever near morning, although before 
 the earliest east has paled, the accurate observer will 
 find in nature the deepest stillness. 
 
 The shrill cry of the katydid, the cicala of the west, 
 which carols so exultingly all the night long over her 
 goblets of night-dew^j has lulled itself at last to rest. 
 The owls that hooted from every dell and dingle, so long 
 as the moon rode the heavens, have betaken themselves 
 to their morning slumbers. The night-frogs have ceased 
 to croak from the wooded hill ; the very cocks, which 
 have crowed twice, are silent; and the w^atch-dogs, feel- 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 81 
 
 ing that their sagacity will be required but a few hours 
 longer, have withdrawn to their cozy kennels. 
 
 There is in this stillness something peculiarly grand, 
 solemn, and affecting. Involuntarily it reminds one of 
 the morning sleep of the young child, which, perturbed 
 and restless during the earlier watches of the night, falls 
 ever into the soundest and most refreshing slumber, 
 when the moment is nearest at which it shall start up, 
 reinvigorated and renewed, to fresh hope, fresh life, 
 fresh happiness. 
 
 And in the mind of Harry, ever alive to thick-coming 
 fancies, thoughts such as these were aw^akened, during 
 their swift walk up the vale on that clear still autumnal 
 morning, far more than the keen sportsman's eagerness, 
 or the exciting ardour of the chase. 
 
 After they had walked, however, some twenty min- 
 utes in complete silence, the whole programme of the 
 day's sport having been abandoned to the old hunter's 
 sagacity, Harry beca'me curious to know what were his 
 arrangements for the contemplated still-hunt. 
 
 Withdrawing, therefore, from his mouth the cigar 
 which he had been sedulously cultivating, he said to 
 the hunter in a low voice — 
 
 « Well, Dolph, how is it to be ?" 
 
 " You goes with me, in course. We'll take the birch 
 ;anoe at the bridge, and follow the crick dow^n, still as 
 Jeath, to Green's Pond. It's like we'll cotch them as 
 tliey come down to drink, at gray daybreak. Then, 
 
82 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 when we reach the pond edge, we'll round the western 
 eend, and so creep up the brook that comes down 
 through the cedars, clear from the mountain top, and 
 work up that to leeward, 'till we strikes Old Bald-head 
 yander ;" and as he spoke, he designated the huge 
 crest of a distant hill, crowned, far above its robe of 
 many-coloured foliage, with a gray diadem of everlast- 
 ing granite. '' There's a green feedin'-ground jest 
 under yan bare crag, with nothen only a few stunted 
 yellow birches and a red cedar here and there, where 
 there's a herd a'most alius ; and if so be we happen on 
 'em there, they've no chance to wind us, nor to see us, 
 nuther, unless they've got a doe set out, sentinel-like, 
 up the rocks ; and then we'll stalk the whole west 
 mountain down to the outlet, where we'll meet the rest 
 on 'em, and take a bite and sup at something, maybe ; 
 and then we'll send the boys with the ponies to fetch 
 up the game, if so be we've the luck to kill any on't; 
 and we'll all paddle up the crick agin at night, and so 
 take chance to git 'em at the evenin' drink. The flies 
 has quit botherin' 'em, since the cold has sot in, and 
 we wunt find none in the pond, I'm a thinkin'." 
 
 <« But what will you do with Draw, and Mr. Fores- 
 ter ? You must remember that old Tom cannot foot it 
 now — " 
 
 " Not as he used to could," replied Dolph, "not as he 
 used to could, I allow ; still it 'ud take more nor a slouch 
 to worry "^he old critter down And that green-coated 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 83 
 
 chap ; I guess he ar'n't no great shines at travellin', no 
 how — " 
 
 tt Ah ! that's just where you're out, Dolph, and you're 
 not out very often either. He can travel like a hunted 
 wolf, I tell you ; and he's a prime sportsman, and a 
 crack shot at small game, though not much used to 
 work of this kind. But you must send them where 
 they'll get shots, or they'll be mad at us ; and it would 
 not be fair either, to throw them over." 
 
 " In course not ; I counts to put them on the best 
 easy ground. When w^e take the canoe, three of my 
 boys w^ill meet them with two ponies, so they can ride 
 down to Cobus Vanderbeck's mill, on the outlet, where 
 it's broad, and full of islands like, and channels. 
 They'll git canoes there sure, and two o' the boys will 
 paddle them, and the t'other, why he'll follow with the 
 ponies. It'll be all they'll do to git to the pond by the 
 time we strikes it, though we've got fourteen miles to 
 walk, not countin' what w^e crosses over and agin' in 
 beatin' like. Oh ! that's prime feedin'-grounds, them 
 islands, and the boys, they knows every inch on 'em , 
 and they'll come on the deer quarterin' upwind, too, sc 
 they won't smell 'em. I wouldn't wonder, not one 
 mite, if they was to git ten shots this day. But, Lord, 
 heart alive ! we'll beat 'em some." 
 
 «' Why, how many do you count upon our getting ?" 
 
 " I'll be most mighty onsatisfied, now I toll you, if 
 we don't git six fair ones." 
 
84 THE DLERSTALKKRS, 
 
 " Six won't beat ten." 
 
 " You knows better nor that ; you and I'll kill five 
 out of six, sartin." 
 
 " So will Tom, easy." 
 
 " Yes ; if they stand still and wait for him. Don't 
 you tell me ; if we get six, and they ten shots, we'll 
 beat them to etarnal smash." 
 
 " I hardly think we shall get sixteen shots among 
 us." 
 
 " I do, Mister Aircher. Deers is as plenty this fall, 
 as they's been scace these six years agone." 
 
 " Here we are at the bridge ; but I don't see the boys 
 or the ponies." 
 
 " Oh ! they'll be here torights. I'll call 'em." And 
 putting his fore-finger into his mouth, he produced a 
 long shrieking whistle, which rang through the hills 
 more like the cry of some fierce bird of prey than any 
 sound of the human voice. 
 
 Such as it was, however, it found a reply in a second, 
 and directly afterward the clatter of horses' hoofs was 
 heard coming rapidly down the hard road ; and a minute 
 after the boys, represented by one white lad of some 
 eighteen years of age, Dolph's second son, and two of 
 what Tom Draw called stinkin' black buck niggers, 
 came in sight, with a couple of rough, hardy-looking, 
 low, round-barrelled ponies. 
 
 " Here we leave you, Frank. You and Tom go to- 
 day with Dolph's son," said Harry Archer. " You 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS, 85 
 
 will ride about three miles and then take the canoes. 
 You have the best ground and the easiest walking— or 
 I should rather say the least walking; for yours will be 
 almost all boat-work. Dolph says that you will get ten 
 shots to our six ; so look sharp, that we don't beat you.'* 
 
 "I wisht to heaven you may git ten and we six, boy," 
 cried Tom, «< and then you'd see who'd beat, I feckon. 
 Oh! I am most onmighty glad to see them ponies. 
 You've been comin' too fast for the old man, altogither — 
 another mile would have busted me up clean. I am glad, 
 by Gin I to see the pony." 
 
 " It's more than the pony is to see you, if he has any 
 nous at all," said Archer, and so they parted. 
 
 And weary w^ork was before them, ere they met again 
 at the outlet of the lake, at which they were to arrive 
 from two diametrically opposite quarters. 
 
 Harry stepped lightly into the birch canoe, which lay 
 moored in very shallow water, and the sagacious hound, 
 accustomed of yore to every variety of field sport, crept 
 into it, as gingerly as if he were treading upon eggs, 
 and coiled himself up in the very centre of the frail 
 vessel, as if he knew exactly how to balance it, in a 
 position from which nothing could have disturbed him 
 short of the absolute command of his master. 
 
 Last Dolph the hunter entered, and assumed his place 
 in the stern, Harry occupying the bow, but with their 
 faces toward the head of the canoe, and the gripes of 
 their rifles ready to be grasped at the shortest notice. 
 
86 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 " Ready I" said Dolph, in that low guarded tone which 
 is peculiar to the forester of North America. 
 
 And " Ready I" responded Archer, in the like wary ac- 
 cents. And at the word each dipped his paddle in the 
 clear water, and away shot the light vessel, propelled 
 almost without an effort on the part of the rowers ; and in 
 two or three minutes at farthest they had lost sight of the 
 rustic bridge, and the group assembled to watch their 
 departure. The stream w^as in this place very narrow, 
 in no spot above twelve or fourteen feet across, but 
 proportionably deep and rapid, flowing over a bottom 
 of yellow sand and gravel, through a wide boggy 
 meadow. 
 
 " Are there trout here, Dolph ?" 
 
 " Lots on 'em, clear down to the pond. But no one 
 niver cotched none in the pond ; nor no pickerel, 
 which is plenty in the pond, up hereaways in the crick ; 
 and that seems to me cur'ous." 
 
 ««Not at all, Dolph. Not at all curious. The pond 
 water is too warm for the trout, and this spring brook is 
 too cold for pickerel." 
 
 t' Likely. I ar'n't no fisherman, nohow." 
 
 ii How far do you call it down to the pond } I have 
 forgotten." 
 
 " Six mile." 
 
 " And how far to the first chance for deer?" 
 
 " That's it," he answered, pointing forward to a low 
 tract of scrubby brushwood, at about half a mile's dis- 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 87 
 
 tance, into which, some twenty minutes afterward, the 
 canoe was borne by the rapid current of the brook 
 under a deep arch of emerald verdure. 
 
 <« Lay by your paddle, and take up the rifle now, 
 and lie flat on your face. I'll keep her goin' as slick 
 as can be." 
 
 No sooner had he spoken than Harry did as he was 
 directed, and making his rifle ready for the most sudden 
 emergency, he stretched himself out horizontally in the 
 bottom of the boat, with his keen eye alone gleaming 
 out watchfully above the sharp bows, and lay there as 
 quietly as if he had been a statue carved in wood. 
 
 At this instant the birch canoe shot under the arch 
 of dense umbrage, for the most part still verdant, where 
 it was composed principally of alders, but in places 
 coloured by the autumnal frosts with almost every hue 
 of the rainbow^, and varying from the deepest crimson 
 to the most brilliant orange and chrome yellow. 
 
 By this time the sun had risen, and a pale yellow 
 lustre had crept inch by inch, as it were, over the pale 
 horizon, till the stars were all put out, each after each, 
 according to the various degrees of their intensity, and 
 the whole universe was laughing in the glorious sun- 
 light. 
 
 Mile after mile, they floated on in silence — silence 
 unbroken except by the dash of the mute hunter's pad- 
 pie — now darting across lonely pools, encircled by tall 
 
 trees, clad in all gorgeous tints, and carpeted with the 
 113 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 broad smooth green leaves of the water-lily — pools 
 from which the gay summer-duck, or the blue-WTnged 
 teal flashed up on sudden wing before their glancing 
 prow — now shooting down swift rapids, overarched by 
 bushes so densely umbrageous that it was difficult to 
 force a w^ay between their tangled masses. 
 
 Still no sight or sound met their eyes or ears which 
 betokened in any sense the vicinity of the wild cattle 
 of the hills, and Archer was beginning to wax impatient 
 and uneasy, when suddenly, bursting from out a thick 
 heavy arbour, the canoe shot into a little pond, as it 
 were, below which was a quick-glancing rapid, divided 
 into three channels by a small green island, nearly be- 
 fore the boat's head, and a huge block of granite, a vast 
 boulder, which had been swept down in some remote 
 period from the overtopping hills, farther to the left. 
 The island w^as not at the utmost three yards across, 
 yet on it there grew a tall silver-barked birch, and under 
 the shade of the birch stood two beautiful and graceful 
 deer, one sipping the clear w^ater, and the other gazing 
 down the brook in the direction opposite to that from 
 which the hunters were coming upon them. 
 
 Neither of the three channels of the stream was above 
 twelve or fourteen feet across, and that to the right was 
 somewhat the deepest ; it was, therefore, through this 
 that the hunter had intended to guide his boat, even 
 before he saw the quarry. 
 
 No breath of air was stirring in those deep, sylvan 
 
THE BUCK PEER.— P^/^^eSf). 
 
« • • « « * 
 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 89 
 
 haunts, so that no taint, telling of man's appalling pre- 
 sence, was borne to the timid nostrils of the wild ani- 
 mals, which were already cut off from the nearer shore 
 before they perceived the approach of their mortal foes. 
 
 The quick eye of Archer caught them upon the 
 instant, and almost simultaneously the hunter had 
 checked the way of the canoe, and laid aside his 
 paddle. 
 
 He was already stretching out his hand to grasp the 
 ready rifle, when Archer's piece rose to his shoulder 
 with a steady slow motion; the trigger was drawn, and 
 ere the close report had time to reach its ears, the 
 nearer of the two bucks had fallen, with its heart cleft 
 asunder by the unerring bullet, into the glassy ripple 
 out of which it had been drinking, tinging the calm 
 pool far and wide with its life-blood. 
 
 Quick as light, as the red flash gleamed over the 
 ambrageous spot, long before it had caught the rifle's 
 crack, the second, with a mighty bound, had cleared 
 the intervening channel, and lighted upon the gray 
 granite rock. Not one second's space did it pause there, 
 however, but gathering its agile limbs again, sprang 
 shoreward. 
 
 A second more it had been safe in the coppice. But 
 in that very second, the nimble finger of the sportsman 
 had cocked the second barrel ; and while the gallant 
 beast was suspended in mid air, the second ball was 
 sped on its errand. 
 
90 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 A dull, dead splash, heard by the hunters before the 
 crack, announced that the ball had taken sure effect, 
 and, arrested in its leap, the noble quarry fell. 
 
 For one moment's space it struggled in the narrow 
 rapid, then, by a mighty effort rising again, it dashed 
 forward, feebly fleet, keeping the middle of the channel. 
 
 Meanwhile the boat, unguided by the paddle and 
 swept in by the driving current, had touched upon the 
 gravel shoal and was motionless. 
 
 Feeling this as it were instinctively, Harry un- 
 sheathed his long knife, and with a wild shrill cheer to 
 Smoker, sprang first ashore, and then plunged reck- 
 lessly into the knee-deep current ; but ere he had made 
 three strides, the fleet dog passed him, with his white 
 tushes glancing from his black lips, and his eyes glaring 
 like coals of lire, as he sped mute and rapid as the wind 
 after the wounded game. 
 
 The vista of the wood through which the brook ran 
 straight was not at the most above fifty paces in length, 
 and of these ihe wounded buck had gained at least ten 
 clear start. 
 
 Ere it had gone twenty more, however, the fleet dog 
 had it by the throat. There was a stern, short strife, 
 and both went down toofether into the flashinoj waters. 
 Then, ere the buck could relieve itself, or harm the no- 
 ble dog, the keen knife of Archer was in its throat — 
 one sob, and all was over. 
 
 ('I swon," cried the hunter, "them was two smar*- 
 
TIIK DKKRSTALKERS. 91 
 
 shots inyhow — and that 'ere dog's hard to beat. Let's 
 liquor." 
 
 Liquor they did accordingly — and after that proceeded 
 to disembowel the two deer, to flesh the gallant Smoker, 
 and then to hoist their quarry up into the forks of two 
 lofty maples, where they should be beyond the reach 
 of any passing quadruped or biped plunderer. 
 
 This done, they again paddled onward, and shortly 
 after ten o'clock reached the Green Pond, w^ithout 
 obtaining any other shot. An hour more carried them 
 around the head of that great forest lake, but without 
 moving any worthier game than a team or two of wild 
 ducks, and two or three large blue-winged herons. 
 
 At the lake's head, they moored their little skiff, and 
 thence struggled up the difficult and perilous chasm of 
 its head waters, through brakes of tufted cedars, over 
 smooth, slippery rocks, up white and foamy ledges to 
 the gray summit of the mighty hill. 
 
 Three hours had been consumed m this strong toil , 
 and though every tuft of moss, every sere leaf that 
 might bear a footprint, had been wistfully examined — 
 though every trunk against which a stag might fray his 
 antlers had been noted, no trail had been found, and 
 their hearts began to wax as faint as their limbs were 
 weary. 
 
 Both w^ere toil-worn and broken when they reached 
 the summit, but even so the hunter declined the proffered 
 cup of Ferintosh ; and, content with bathing his brow 
 
92 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 and hands in tlie cold element of which he dared not 
 drink, so weary was he and so faint, he soon announced 
 that he was ready to proceed. 
 
 A few steps brought them to the very crest of the 
 huge mountain, and there casting himself down on the 
 bare rock, he wormed his way like a serpent to the 
 brink, which overhung the valley, and signed Harry to 
 follow his example. 
 
 For nearly ten minutes they dragged themselves pain- 
 fully over the rough gray stones, before they reached 
 the abrupt ledge of the rocky platform. A moment 
 before they did reach it, however, Dolph Pierson paused, 
 took off his cap, and laid it on the rock, looked to the 
 caps of his rifle, and made a gesture of his hand, indi- 
 cating the necessity of the greatest caution. 
 
 Ten seconds afterward they had reached the extreme 
 verge, and carefully advancing their heads beyond the 
 brink, they gazed anxiously down into the valley at 
 their feet. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE STAG. 
 
 It was a stag, a stag often, 
 
 Bearing his branches sturdily ; 
 He came stately down the glen, 
 
 Ever sing hardily, hardily. 
 
 Lady of the Lake. 
 
 Gcul ! what a view was there ! The sheer and per- 
 pendicular precipice fell down at once above two hun- 
 dred feet, in one vast wall of primitive rock, with here 
 and there the stem of a bleached and thunder-splintered 
 pine, thrusting its ghastly skeleton forth into the mid 
 air, from some crevice or fissure wherein its roots had 
 found a little casual mould to support its precarious and 
 difficult existence. 
 
 Beneath this gigantic mountain wall, the hill-side 
 sloped away, very steep and abrupt, but unbroken by 
 any knoll or crag, for several miles in length, to the 
 margin of the clear lake, which lay embosomed in its 
 pine forests, like a mirror surrounded by a wreath of 
 evergreens, to so small a size had it dwindled from the 
 distance ; with the bright brook which rushed into it, 
 
94 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 rapid and turbulent, from the westward, and the pellucid 
 brimful river which stole forth from it in the opposite 
 direction, winding among the verdant meadow^s, and 
 many-coloured w^oodlands, like a long silver ribbon. 
 
 Beyond the little lake stretched miles and miles of 
 gorgeous autumnal woodland to the southward, miles 
 and miles of dark piny forest, with here and there a 
 cultivated clearing laughing out among the foliage, its 
 white- walled cottages and village steeple glinting 
 back the long sunbeams ; and farther yet aloof, still 
 other lakes isledotted, and other streams blue glim- 
 mering ; and leagues away on the horizon a long Ime 
 of blue mountains, scarcely distinguishable from the 
 azure of the sky, veiled as they were by the thin golden 
 haze of an American autumn, and flooded by the unri- 
 valled splendour of its shimmering sunshine. 
 
 Glorious as was that scene, however, and rich with 
 all accidents of light and shadow, sweet to a painter's 
 eye, and well adapted to call forth all the latent romance 
 of a young and imaginative intellect, and such pre- 
 eminently w^as the intellect of Harry Archer, it must be 
 confessed that for once his eye strayed over it uncon- 
 scious of its beauties, or, if not unconscious, at least 
 careless. 
 
 The hill-side, between the rocky w^all and the lake, 
 had been swept by fire not many years before, and was 
 now covered w^ith a rich growth of tall grass, and low 
 bushy shrubs, with here and there the black scathed 
 
THi: DEERSTALKERS. 95 
 
 trunk of some gigantic cedar towering up, a monument 
 of past devastation, from its verdant slope, and here 
 and there a group of young graceful trees, which had 
 shot up vigorously from the ashes of their sires towards 
 the clear skies, and bright sun, which they could 
 now behold, no longer cowed and opposed by the 
 tyrannous verdure of their gigantic ancestry. 
 
 This was the famous feeding-ground, to overlook 
 which our hunters had toiled so painfully to the summit 
 of that towering precipice ; and, as Dolph had observed, 
 rarely was it, indeed, that its rich and succulent pasture 
 could not display one herd, at least, to the sportsman's 
 ken. 
 
 The gentle south-west wind blew full and fresh into 
 the faces of Harry and the hunter, so that no taint could 
 be carried from the persons, by the nimble atmosphere, 
 to the dehcate organs of their intended. It was the 
 quick eyes, therefore, of the sentinel does only, that it 
 was necessary for them now to avoid. 
 
 The first glance was enough to fill a hunter's heart 
 with rapture, for, close below the crags, and mthin easy 
 shot of the platform on which they lay, a noble herd was 
 pasturing; three gallant bucks, one of the first head, 
 and twice the number of slim and graceful hinds ; besides 
 a seventh, which stood a few hundred paces from the 
 rest on a httle knoll, or gentle elevation lower than 
 what we should term a knoll, with head erect, ears 
 pricked up and expanded to catch the smallest sound, 
 
96 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 widely distended nostrils snuffing the breeze, as anxious 
 to detect some taint on its fresh balmy breath, and eyes 
 keenly and warily roving over the whole expanse of 
 rock, wood, pasture, lake, and river. 
 
 No rash or boyish excitement at the view prevented 
 those skilful foresters from taking an accurate survey 
 of all that lay wdthin the range of their vision ; no burst 
 of eager impulse led them to discharge their rifles at 
 the nearer herd until such time as they should have 
 accurately scanned the whole pasture range, to see if 
 there might not be some other deer within reach, which 
 it might be possible to circumvent before pulling trigger 
 on these ; which might be considered as completely 
 wdthin their power. 
 
 Their scrutiny was speedily and well rew^arded ; for 
 in three several points of the landscape did they detect 
 the noble animals of which they were in quest, tranquilly 
 feeding on the long grass, and incumbent branches of 
 the underwood, entirely unconscious of the vicinity of 
 their deadly enemies. 
 
 In one little open glade about a mile to the eastward, 
 there was a noble hart of the largest size, with a year- 
 ling buck, or prickhorn, and tw^o barren hinds. Among 
 the dense coppice- wood, yet half a mile farther to the 
 east, the wood-brown backs and hornless heads of 
 several more hinds might be distinguished by a prac- 
 tised eye, though it was not easy to make out their 
 exact number. Far away, to complete the tale, on the 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 97 
 
 margin of the woods skirting the lake, a yet larger herd, 
 than any of those nearer to the sportsmen, were lying 
 down to rest, licking their glossy coats, or scratching 
 their ears with their cloven hoofs, in perfect security 
 and fearlessness. 
 
 In a word, from the elevated station on w^hich they 
 lay overlooking the wide valley, not less than forty or 
 fifty head of deer w^ere visible at once, among which 
 the hunters had been at the first glance able to detect 
 with certainty two harts of the first head, or what in the 
 Scottish forests would be called harts rOyal, and two 
 other stags of six or eight branches, besides the yearling 
 prickhorn. The farthest herd was too distant to admit 
 of their distinguishing the age or even the sex of the 
 animals w^hich composed it. 
 
 Ten minutes were perhaps devoted by the hunters 
 to this survey of their scene of action, during which 
 neither of the two moved hand or foot, or indeed gave 
 any sign of life except by the keen glances of their 
 watchful and roving eyes. At length, when each was 
 apparently satisfied with that which he had himself seen, 
 their eyes met, with a look of mutual intelligence ; and 
 drawing back their heads as warily as they had thrust 
 them forw^ard, they wormed their way backward foot 
 by foot over the craggy plalfijrm, until they reached a 
 little hollow of the rocks at about a hundred yards' 
 distance from the brink, and then, safely out of eyeshot 
 
98 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 and earshot of the wary herds, they paused in consul- 
 tation. 
 
 " Well, Mister Aircher," the old hunter began, " yan 
 is a noble sight for a hunter's eye, is yan! You niver 
 seed jest sich another, I'm a thinkin'. There's fawty 
 head of deer on the range, if there's one. Do tell now, 
 did you iver see the like .'"' 
 
 t« Many's the time, Dolph, many's the time, on Brae- 
 mar, and from the craigs of Ben-y-Ghoil. But never 
 mind that now. How do you mean to work them ? and 
 how many call we get ? I make four parcels, within 
 eye-range, that may be worked up to ; but one of the 
 four is all hinds, and of no account." 
 
 " Four passels," replied the hunter, doubtfully. 
 «<Four passels there be, sure enough; but how the 
 heavens and airth you'd work up to the big lot by the 
 pond edge, is more nor I can calkilate. No, no, boy. 
 There's three passels, only, 'at can be shot at by this 
 party; and, as you says right, one of them's all does, 
 and of no account. That nighest bunch to the eastward 
 has got one fine biggest sort of buck in it ; but if we 
 goes to shoot it fust, and I won't say as it can't be 
 shot, cause the rocks is a plaguy sight lower there- 
 away than they is here ; if we goes, I say, to shoot it 
 fust, I'm afeard that the wind, which takes a swirl like, 
 oncet and agin, amongst these big gray stones, will 
 bring down the scent of us, and mayhap the crack of 
 the rifles too, and so skear these away. I guess it's 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 99 
 
 best to pick the three bucks out of this nighest passel, 
 and let the others fjo." 
 
 «' I think not, Dolph," replied Archer, confidently ; 
 " and I assure you that there are four parcels, beside 
 that by the lake. Your eyes, good as they are, have 
 failed you for once. You know the deep narrow gully 
 that forks from the glen we came up to the mountain, 
 and cuts right across the pasturage from the west, 
 eastward — " 
 
 " Katycornered like," interrupted the hunter. " Yes, 
 I knows it, and knowed it afore iver you was thought 
 on ; what on't, Aircher .'"' 
 
 <' Why, about twenty yards below it, there lies a great 
 round-headed gray rock, w^hat I call a boulder, w^hich 
 must have fallen from these crags ages since ; and a 
 hundred yards again, or thereabout, below that, there 
 stands a tall black half-burnt cedar, with a thicket of 
 briars and wild raspberry-bushes about its foot — look 
 here, Dolph," he continued, pointing to the scathed top 
 of a pine projecting from the face of the crags, " bring 
 that white pine top into a range with the spot where the 
 feeder comes into the Green Pond, and you will have 
 rock, cedar-stump, and all, in one range. Well, that 
 done, look close in at the bottom of the cedar; and 
 among the briars you w^ill see a monstrous stag, couched 
 all alone. I do think, Dolph, it is the big mouse- 
 coloured hart you wounded last fall on the northern 
 
100 THK DEEKSTALKERS. 
 
 slope ; tlie hart, I mean, that we tracked thirty miles in 
 the snow, and lost after all." 
 
 «' Do you though, Aircher? By H w^e must have 
 
 liim, if so be, it be he. He had twelve branches on his 
 horns then, and he'll have thirteen now — don't you 
 mind that, for sartln ?" 
 
 <' Surely I do; but he is too far off now for me to 
 mark that distinctly ; and, as w^e lay, I could not get 
 my glass out. Here it is, fit it to your focus, and creep 
 forward and examine him ; I would rather have your 
 judgment than my own, by one-half." 
 
 " I dun' know — I dun' know," replied the old hunt- 
 er, gazing at him with not a little of admiration, and 
 perhaps a slight shade of half good-humoured envy; 
 " them eyes o' yourn is young, and I thinks as how 
 they grows younger like and keener ivery year ; and 
 mine's a failin' me for sartin. I'll go, though, I'll go, 
 boy. But fust tell a feller how you thinks to do with 
 them — so I'll be able to make out and settle all slick 
 and to rights. We moun't be creepin' any more to the 
 edge like, if we don't warnt to skear 'em. What's your 
 plan, say?" 
 
 <' My plan's soon told, Dolph. It is that you should 
 lie here on the brow, keeping that royal hart under your 
 rifle all the time. That I should creep dow^n the ravine, 
 or gully, to the gray stone ; and if I can once get to 
 that, I can fetch him sure. There's a strong run of 
 water in the gnlh; and the ripple of that will drown 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 101 
 
 the noise of my feet ; and the ravine is so deep, and its 
 face on this side is so steep and broken, that I think 
 this light wind will sweep right over it, without bring- 
 ing any taint of me to the nostrils of that knowing doe. 
 Then, if I can manage it rightly, and shoot the big hart 
 before he bounces, there'll be nothing but the rifle- 
 crack, which will only sound like a squib in the open, 
 and a puff of smoke, which, if they neither see nor smell 
 me, will scarce alarm them. But if it do, and you 
 shoot down the old stag, as you can do certainly, the 
 herd will either strike down hill toward the east end of 
 the gulley, where I can race for it under cover, and 
 perhaps get another double shot at them ; or, they will 
 dash directly eastward along the base of the crags, ta- 
 king that other big hart, the prickhorn, and the two does 
 along with them ; and in that case you must head them 
 along the cliff-tops, where they trend northerly away ; 
 when you will probably drive the whole of the two par- 
 cels down to the outlet, where Tom and Frank Forester 
 will be ready by that time to give an account of them. 
 Again, if none of them take the alarm, I'll steal up the 
 gorge back to you, without bleeding him or breaking 
 him up, till after we have done with all the other par- 
 cels. Then I can creep along the summit here, till I 
 get opposite the big stag, and the prickhorn, when per- 
 haps I can get both of them, while you knock over this 
 chap here below you. That's all ; what do you think 
 ofit, Dolpt?" 
 
102 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 " I dun' know yit awliiles," replied the old forester, 
 as he brought Harry's glass to the right focus for his 
 eye. " I'll go off and see how 't looks, and be back 
 torights, and we'll fix it one w^ay. Seems to me the wind 
 is kind o' breezin' stronger up, and drawin' westerly 
 more, and that'll be agin your not skeerin' 'em. But 
 we'll see." 
 
 And off he crawled for the second time, leaving his 
 rifle and his cap behind him, and carrying Harry's fine 
 Dolland telescope carefully in his right hand, w^hile with 
 the left he wormed himself along the surface of the 
 ground. 
 
 Archer, thus left alone, applied himself to a careful 
 examination of his rifle. He took off the caps, to see 
 that the powder was well up in the nipples ; and, satis- 
 fied that all w^as right, wiped the cones w^ith a piece of 
 greased leather, renewed the caps, ran his rod down 
 the barrels, and finding that everything was in right 
 working order, drew out his dram-bottle, ate a sand- 
 wich, and w^ashed it down by a moderate sup of the 
 old Ferintosh. 
 
 This done, he shook himself, with a well satisfied air 
 and expression ; raised the heavy rifle tw^o or three 
 times to his eye, and as he laid it aside muttered to 
 himself. " Til have that hart royal for a thousand !" 
 
 As he spoke, Dolph returned from his reconnoissance, 
 and as he thrust the joints of the telescope together be- 
 tween the palms of his horny hands, '< All's right," he 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 103 
 
 said, "Mr. Aircher. Your plan is the best, I think. 
 We'll git the two best bucks so, inyhow, and maybe an- 
 other. But, as it is, I'd rayther have that 'ere big 'un.of 
 all, than three common- sized. The wind has hauled a 
 pint more to the westward nor it was ; and its kind o' 
 freshenin' up, so I kind o' thinks as your shot '11 skear 
 this passel ; but I'll keep well ahead on 'em to the east- 
 ward, when I shoots, and show myself like, and if you 
 hears me shout, then strick it down like anything along 
 the holler. Now, be off with you. That big fellow lies 
 still yet awhiles. But if I shoots afore you git to the 
 gray rock, then you may know as he's bounced, and 
 come stret back to me. I'd like to git a good shoot to- 
 day like, for I'm afeard it'll rain to-night or to-morrow." 
 
 " Let it rain," replied Archer, cheerily. " I'll have 
 that mouse-coloured fellow, anyway. I say, Dolph, 
 keep you Smoker here, and after you shoot at this herd, 
 point them to him, and wave your hand well eastward 
 as he starts, and ten to one he'll course them right 
 down to me. Good-bye, old boy!" 
 
 And with the word, he dropped the telescope into his 
 pocket, snatched up his rifle, donned his cap, and after 
 motioning Smoker to lie quiet, until such time as he 
 should return, stole away quietly for a few yards, till 
 he had cleared the plateau of rocks, and then dashed 
 down the mountain gully, at a pace widely different from 
 the toilsome labour by which they had dragged them- 
 selves to the upper from the lower elevation within half 
 114 
 
104 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 an hour. Now racing rapidly down the soft peaty 
 margin of the brook, where it spread out into marshy 
 swales ; now bounding fearlessly from rock to rock, 
 where it flowed among big round boulders ; now swing- 
 ing himself by the pendulous arms of hemlocks and ce- 
 dars from ledge to ledge, where it fell in mimic cataracts 
 and rapids, over long rifts of slaty limestone ; he effected 
 in less than twenty minutes the descent of the gorge, 
 to ascend which it had cost him and Dolph Pierson 
 above two hours of difficult and painful labour. 
 
 By this time, he had reached the point at which a 
 large fresh spring boils up from the bottom of the bed 
 of the brook, and leaving the old stream to persist in a 
 direct course to the lake below, shoots off at an acute 
 angle between two shoulders of black dripping rock, 
 and forms the ravine, of which I have spoken as diago- 
 nally crossing the green pasturage, or as it is generally 
 termed in that part of the country, " The burnt feeding- 
 grounds." 
 
 At this spot the view does not extend fifty yards in 
 any direction ; for the new stream turns a second angle 
 before it strikes the open ground, and the whole space 
 about the forks is covered with so dense a forest of pine, 
 hemlock, and cedar, with a few tamarack about the 
 edges of the brook, that the sight is circumscribed 
 within very narrow limits. 
 
 Here Archer paused for a moment to recover his 
 breath ; bathed his face and hands in the cool stream, 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. lOo 
 
 and Uieii tunied down the gorge to his left, with a war}' 
 and crouching step, A'ery different from tlie free bound- 
 ing pace at which he had dashed down the precipitous 
 hill-side. 
 
 Within five minutes he reached the jaws of the ra- 
 vine, where the wood broke off in sparse masses to the 
 right hand and the left, and the little torrent, rushing 
 through a scarped natural pass, plunged down a pitch 
 of some forty feet into the deep gravelly trench through 
 which it seethed and chafed on its way to join the dis- 
 tant outlet. 
 
 Here again Archer paused, and looked warily abroad. 
 From his altered position he could now see only three 
 of the separate lots, or parcels, as they are more cor- 
 rectly termed, five of which he had noted from the 
 summit : The large solitar}^ hart, which had arisen from 
 his lair, and was now browsing lazily among the boughs 
 which had of late afforded him their shelter — the great 
 herd in the bottom of the valley by the lake's edge — and 
 the lot composed of three bucks and seven does, which 
 had moved, though vrithout taking the alarm, some 
 hundred yards nearer to himself. 
 
 This was of course all in his favour, since, if his 
 taint, or the smell of his powder, should reach them, it 
 would find them embayed, as it were, in the angle be 
 tween the crags and the gorge, so that Dolph would 
 have every opportunity of heading them again, and 
 driving them down to the mouth of the ravine. 
 
106 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 A minute sufficed him wherein to observe all this, 
 and throwing- his rifle, half-cocked and ready, to a long 
 trail, he stole down the centre of the streamlet's bed, 
 above knee-deep in water, stooping low and with every 
 sense on the alert, toward the w^ell marked point, di- 
 rectly opposite the big gray boulder, which was his 
 gfuide and landmark. 
 
 Before he struck the water-course, however, he took 
 his bearings accurately, w^ell knowing that he could 
 not lift his head above the verge of the ravine to ascer- 
 tain his whereabout, without the certainty of terrifying 
 the animal of which he was in pursuit from the place 
 at which he was likely to fall an easy victim to his 
 rapid and unerring aim. 
 
 This was soon done, for a stunted oak grew on the 
 left side of the w^ater-course, exactly opposite to the 
 rock, so that he had nothing to do but to steal silently, 
 keeping his head low, to that tree ; with the certainty 
 of success should he reach it undiscovered. 
 
 Meanw^hile, old Dolph, with Smoker crouching at his 
 heel, had again crawded to the brink, and, with his rifle 
 ready for instant service, w^as watching with anxious 
 eye the movements of his young comrade. 
 
 The deer which it was his peculiar duty to keep 
 under his aim had indeed moved a little further to the 
 westw^ard, but he cared not for that; well knowing that 
 on the sound of Harry's rifle below them, they w-ould 
 ■.ome, if alarmed, directly tow^ard him ; since, lying to 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 107 
 
 the leeward of him, they could not discorer him by the 
 exquisite acuteness of their olfactory organs, any more 
 than the great hart could discover Harry, his lair being 
 farther yet to windward. 
 
 The same cause, however, militated against Harry ; 
 for crawling, as he was, down a gorge midway between 
 the little pack and the solitary stag, the same wind 
 which favoured him in regard to the latter was directlji 
 adverse to him in respect of the former, so that the 
 operation in which he was engaged was as nice a one 
 as any that can be imagined in the whole range of 
 deerstalking. 
 
 And admirably well did he perform it. The eye of 
 the veteran marked him, as he appeared and disap- 
 peared, and reappeared again, among the sinuosities 
 of the w^ild gorge, never raising his head sufficiently to 
 let the keenest eye catch a glimpse of it above the 
 grassy banks, or exposing his person to the gusts of 
 wind, which were now beginning to sweep fitfully 
 across the open and bleak hill-side. 
 
 Dolph rubbed his hands in ecstacy, as he observed 
 the care, the toil, the active yet deliberate patience, 
 with which his pupil made his way toward the goal, at 
 which he aimed. "Ah! he's a great 'un," he muttered 
 \o himself inaudibly, <'for all he's a Britisher. I nivei 
 seed his like nohow, for quickness at kitchin' inything. 
 I wisht one of my boys 'ud take arter him, but Lord ! 
 they ar'n't half a beginnin'. He'll git that stag yit, I 
 
108 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 swon ; and not start them long-yeared sluts o' does 
 nuther, and that's what I'd not a' promised to a' done, 
 in my youngest and spryest days. He's as 'cute all for 
 one as a Feeladelfy lawyer, as true as a good hound- 
 dog's nose, and as quick — as quick as a greased bullet 
 out on a smart-shootin' rifle." 
 
 But while he was yet speaking, Harry had reached 
 the point where the most care and management was 
 needed, to escape discovery. 
 
 The banks had for some time been gradually be- 
 coming lower and less abrupt ; and the brook, instead 
 of flowing on a declivity parallel to the top of the 
 ravine, had found so hard and even a bottom that it 
 ran over it tranquilly for above a hundred yards in length, 
 scarcely a foot below the level of the surrounding slope 
 ■ — at the end of this hundred yards, there was a deep 
 rapid by which it burst down to a yet lower level, some 
 sixty feet beneath. 
 
 Should the young hunter once succeed in crossing 
 the hundred level yards unseen, and conveying himself 
 to the lower level, his success might be esteemed 
 certain ; but to do so appeared well nigh impossible, 
 since through the whole of that distance he was all but 
 exposed to the quick glances of the does above, and of 
 the hart below ; while it seemed almost certain that the 
 wind must strike his person, and carry the tell-tale odour 
 up hill to the pasturing herd at the crag's foot. 
 
 But he had decided on all his measures beforehand, 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 109 
 
 and they weie executed in an instant. His heavy rifle 
 -as secured in its sling on his shoulder — and his copper 
 'ips and greased patches transferred to the crown of 
 ^is skull-cap ; his powder-flask he secured about his 
 neck by the thong, and held it up in his teeth ; then 
 turning his head to the source of the stream, he worked 
 his way down the centre of the current, which was 
 some eight or ten inches deep, flat upon his belly, until 
 he reached the verge of the fall, down which he suffered 
 himself to slide, retarding the rapidity of his descent 
 by clutching at the ledges with his hands ; a perilous 
 attempt even for a practised cragsman, but in his case 
 fully successful ; for in less than five minutes from his 
 entering the dangerous pass, he stood at the bottom of 
 the cataract unseen and unsuspected. 
 
 Dolph clapped his hands in ecstasy, and seeing that 
 Archer's success was now certain, looked to his own 
 rifle, ^nd prepared himself for his share of the action. 
 
 Harry, meanwhile, as he stood dripping from his ice- 
 cold bath, shook himself like a w^ater-dog, drew a long 
 breath, imbibed a deep draught of Ferintosh, unslung 
 and examined his trusty rifle, and then, having reached 
 the spot opposite to the gray boulder, as indicated by 
 the gnarled oak stump, crawled up the western bank, 
 v/ith his thumb on the rifle-cock, and the nail of his 
 fore-finger close pressed on the trigger-guard. 
 
 Now he attained the brink, crouching low, and keeping 
 his whole form concealed among the long grass and low 
 
110 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 bushes winch crowned the abrupt steep. Only his eye 
 glanced quickly through the dry stems and sere leaves. 
 For a moment, he fancied that his quarry had escaped 
 him ; for it no longer occupied the station at which he 
 had previously observed it; but just as he was beginning 
 to despair, a quick rustle caught his ear from the right 
 hand, or the direction opposite to that in which he had 
 been gazing, and turning his head quickly, he saw the 
 noble beast standing within tw^enty paces of him, tossing 
 his " beamed frontlet to the sky," and snuffing the 
 atmosphere eagerly, as if he suspected the presence 
 of a foe, though ignorant as yet of his exact whereabout. 
 
 With the speed of light the rifle rose to Harry's un- 
 erring eye, a quick flash gleamed through the brush- 
 vrood, a small puff of smoke rose into the cloudless air, 
 a flat quick crack without an echo followed it ; and be- 
 fore the small puff'had cleared away, so truly was that 
 snap-shot aimed, the gallant hart had fallen lifeless, 
 literally without a struggle, on the green sward. 
 
 Lowering his but instantly, Harry poured the mea- 
 sured pow^der into the muzzle, drove down the well 
 patched ball, applied the cap, and was ready for another 
 shot in less time than it has taken to describe the ope- 
 ration. 
 
 The next moment another rifle exploded on the hill 
 above him ; but this time its sharp crack was reverbe- 
 rated and repeated in a hundred ringing echoes from 
 the rocks and the gnarled trunks among w^hich the shot 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. Ill 
 
 was fired ; and instantly a long clear whoop, in the 
 well known stentorian voice of Dolph, announced that 
 the upper herd was in motion. 
 
 At this sound, Harry raised his head the least in the 
 world ; and looking back, perceived the two second-rate 
 stags, with the seven does preceding them, coursing at 
 all their speed along the base of the crags due east- 
 wai'd ; while along the summit he could descry the tall 
 gaunt form of the Dutch hunter bounding forward with 
 what seemed almost supernatural agility, with the dog 
 Smoker at his heels, in the hope of yet cutting them off 
 and forcing them toward the ravine in which Harry 
 stood, half doubtful, half expectant. 
 
 ^« Well !" Archer soliloquized, <« he has shot the stag. 
 That is two royal harts in one day's stalking ; not so 
 bad, faith ! but we shall not get a chance at the others. 
 Come, since there's no hope left of them, I'll e'en bleed 
 this fellow." 
 
 And with the word his keen blade was out, and bu- 
 ried in the weasand of the superb animal, which lay out- 
 stretched lifeless and motionless on the greensward, 
 which it had trod but a little while before, so full of 
 graceful life and fiery vigour. 
 
 " A splendid hart, by heaven ! twenty stone, horse- 
 man's weight, I'll warrant him, after he's gralloched. 
 He never stirred after the ball struck him. It must have 
 pierced the cavity of the heart. Halloo! What the 
 devil's that .^" he continued, as the deep bay of a hound 
 
112 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 <lruck Ills ear. " It's Smoker's tongue, for a million ! 
 but surely, surely, he is not going to run musical, and 
 get himself shot nowadays by these cursed Dutchmen !" 
 The cry was not repeated, but Harry's telescope w^as 
 out in a moment ; and by its aid, he saw the fleet deei 
 hound dashing down a fissure in the rocks, and heading 
 the two stags, which he had cut off from the hinds, di- 
 rectly dow^n upon the ravine w^ithin which he w^as still 
 standing. 
 
 In his impatient joy at finding a pass by w^hich he 
 could descend upon his quarry, the staunch hound had 
 given vent to his pleasure in that one wild cry, and was 
 now running, as was his wont, fleet as the wdnd, and 
 silent ds the night, upon the track of the game. 
 
 Now^ came the iug of w^ar, the rapid and exciting 
 
 ace, w'hich renders deerstalking in the Scottish High- 
 lands the most severe and toilsome of all field sports. 
 Not once in years does such an opportunity occur in 
 the w^oodland tracts of North America, w^herein deer- 
 stalking, or still-hunting as it is appropriately termed, 
 is almost invariably practised in forests so dense that 
 the eye can rarely distinguish objects at above thirty or 
 forty yards distant, and that craft, wariness, and pa- 
 tience are of far more avail than the eagle eye, the un- 
 failing breath, and the iron sinew of the "mountaineer. 
 Nor is it probable that standing, as Harry Archer 
 stood, even as the two stately harts came bounding 
 
 lown the slope, with the fleet hound hard upon their 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 113 
 
 haunches, right toward the lower enJ of the ravine, one 
 man in fifty, who had not been used to Scottish deer- 
 stalking, would have so much as thought of being able 
 to obtain a shot. 
 
 But as the fleet and graceful animals came dashing 
 down the hill, clearing the scattered bushes and blocks 
 of rifted stone, wdiich were strewn here and there on 
 their course, with long and easy bounds, Harry almost 
 instinctively perceived that they had not as yet scented 
 him on the wind, though they were well to leeward of 
 him, owing to his position in the deep channel of the 
 stream. 
 
 At about a mile's distance below him to the eastward, 
 the gorge of the stream melted away into the level plain 
 on the border of the lakelet ; and it was at this point 
 evidently that the deer intended to cross the w^ater. 
 
 If therefore by dint of his utmost speed Harry could 
 reach that point, ere they should cross it, he was sure 
 of at least one shot. And instantly, as he noted the 
 direction of their course, he dashed, reckless of all 
 impediment, at the top of his pace down the gaily. 
 
 There was no space of level ground on either side 
 the brook ; for wherever it had not cut its way sheer 
 through the solid rock, the gravelly or peaty banks, 
 washed by the rains of spring and autumn, fell steep 
 and sheer from the plain above to the w^ater's level. 
 
 The channel of the stream was his course, therefore. 
 
114 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 and a right difficult course for such a headlong race it 
 was. 
 
 Yet he sped fearlessly and fleetly onward ; he could 
 not of course now see anything of the chase he was 
 pursuing ; but he needed not the aid of the eye to know 
 that they would hold their course straight and unaltered 
 to their point. 
 
 Here he leaped with long active bounds from block 
 to block of granite, as they peered with their slippery 
 white heads above the chafing current; here he splashed 
 recklessly through the swift rippling shallows, seeing 
 the swift brook-trout dart through the eddies from before 
 his feet; there, again, he floundered almost waist-defp 
 in the dark pools, where it flowed through peat-bo[^s> 
 and tussocks, springing the English snipe with its shuip 
 shrill cry, and the mallard with its hoarse note of alarm, 
 from the rushes by the margin. 
 
 Onward he sped, still onward, long-breathed, and 
 unwearied ; and ever and anon, he learned by the long 
 cheery huzzas of the old hunter on the hill, that he w^as 
 holding his own at least, if not gaining on the chase. 
 
 It must be understood that the lines on which Archer 
 and the two harts were running, lay nearly at right 
 angles to each other ; Harry having about one mile to 
 run, and the deer about twice that distance, before 
 their courses should intersect one another. 
 
 Harry had now cleared above two-thirds of the dis- 
 tance, and without slackening his pace had pitched up 
 
THR DEERSTALKERS. 115 
 
 his rifle into the hollow of his left hand, and was exa- 
 mining the caps as he ran, to see whether they had 
 been damaged by the water dashed up from his feet in 
 his headlong career. 
 
 The banks grew^ gradually lower, and the stream, 
 spreading over a wilder bed and running on a bright 
 gravel bottom, afforded him a better foothold than he 
 had hitherto encountered. 
 
 At this moment a long piercing yell from Dolph, w^ho 
 from his station on the crags could see everything that 
 was passing, gave him notice that the crisis was at hand. 
 
 An instant more, and before he had even checked 
 his pace, scarce twenty feet apart, with their proud 
 heads aloft, their wild eyes glancing feaifully around 
 them, and their nostrils distended to the utmost, the 
 two harts dashed across the gorge. 
 
 It almost seemed that they w^ere no sooner in iight 
 than they disappeared ; so rapid was their transit, and 
 so completely did the bold bank conceal them, afttr 
 they had once cleared the channel of the stream. 
 
 But sw^ift as was their transit, swifter yet w^as the 
 motion of hand and eye, which brought the ponderous 
 rifle truly and surely to the runner's shoulder, and dis- 
 charged both barrels, in such quick succession that the 
 two reports were almost blended into a single sound. 
 
 No eye of man, however near or quick-sighted, could 
 have noted that either of the balls had taken effect ; 
 but the deerstalker had another sense by which he w^as 
 
116 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 assured that neither of his messengers had failed to per- 
 form its errand. For a dull fiat thud met his ear almost 
 simultaneously with each discharge, which he recog- 
 nised at once as the sound of the ball plunging into its 
 living target. 
 
 Before he had lowered the weapon from his eye, 
 Smoker had swept across the stream at one long swing- 
 ing leap, and was away on the traces of the quarry, 
 still mute, although the slaver on his lip, the glare in 
 his fierce eye, and the wiry bristles erect on his back 
 and shoulders, proved clearly how earnest and how 
 fiery was his excitement. 
 
 Scarce was he out of sight over the ridge, before his 
 master scrambled up out of the gorge, and, scaling the 
 right-hand bank, found one of tlie two harts prostrate 
 and struggling in the death agony, which his sharp 
 knife soon mercifully terminated ; while he might see 
 the other, now some three hundred yards away, striving, 
 with desperate but useless efforts, to escape the pursuit 
 of the stanch deer-hound. Casting down his unloaded 
 rifle by the side of the slain hart, and fixing the spot in 
 his memory by a marking glance, he now bounded on- 
 ward, over the open, to the aid of the gallant hound ; 
 who, he perceived, would ere long overtake the wounded 
 stag, and would in all probability receive some injury, 
 should he attack it single-handed. 
 
 Fast as he ran, however, exerting himself till every 
 •sinew in his frame appeared to crack, and till the sweat 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 117 
 
 rolled in big drops down liis face, despite the coldness 
 
 of the weather, his speed was put forth to no purpose. 
 
 For, wearied soon by its gigantic efforts, and weakened 
 
 by the loss of blood wliich flowed freely from the large 
 
 wound made by the ounce-ball of Harry's rifle, the hart 
 
 turned to bay. 
 
 But it was all too late, for, as he turned, the fierce dog 
 « 
 sprang, fastened his sharp white tusks into his gullet, 
 
 and bore him to the ground in a moment, before he 
 
 had time to strike with his cloven hoofs, or aim a thrust 
 
 with his formidable brow- antlers. 
 
 Then followed a desperate and confused struggle. 
 The hart, strong in its last extremity, rose to its knees 
 again ; tossing its antlered head frantically in fruitless 
 endeavours to break the hold of its cruel enemy, bleat- 
 ing and braying piteously the while, with the big tears 
 rolling down its hairy cheeks, and the blood and foam 
 issuing from its distended jaws. 
 
 For a second's space, it seemed that the stag had 
 the advantage ; but it was for a second only. Again, 
 with a sharp angry growl, the dog tore him down ; and 
 ere he could struggle up again, the man was added to 
 the strife, with all his pitiful and tender feelings ab- 
 sorbed for the time in the wild fury of pursuit, and the 
 fierce joy of capture. 
 
 His foot was on its neck, his knife in its gullet— one 
 sharp gasp, one long heaving shudder, and the bright 
 eye glazed, and the wide nostril collapsed ; and for the 
 
118 THE DEKRSTALKERS. 
 
 fourth time, since the dawn of that sweet autumnal 
 morning, had Harry Archer, as tender-hearted and as 
 kindly-souled a man as ever trod on greensw'ard, taken 
 that life, which but One can bestow', unpitying and 
 relentless. 
 
 And now, weak himself with the violence of his ex- 
 ertions, and overcome with toil, he waved his cap in 
 the air above his head, and sent forth his note of tri- 
 umph in a long-drawn " Who- whoop — " to which a 
 cheery shout replied from the lips of Pierson, who was 
 now running toward him, midway betw^een the cliffs 
 and the streamlet. 
 
 But ere the shout had well died from his tongue, 
 Harry staggered and sank down beside the slaughtered 
 game, half fainting and almost insensible. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GRALLOCHING. 
 
 The raven sat nigh, with her sullen croak, 
 Waiting her bone when the deer was broke. 
 
 Two minutes had not passed between Archer's sink- 
 ing to the ground exhausted, and Pierson's arrival on 
 the scene of action. For, seeing his young'companion 
 fall, as it seemed to him, so suddenly, he imagined that 
 he had received some hurt from the antlers of the 
 wounded stag, in its death-struggle, and in consequence 
 redoubled his" pace down the uneven slope, throwing 
 away his rifle in order to reach the place more speedily. 
 
 During the few seconds that Harry's insensibility 
 
 lasted, Smoker had applied himself assiduously, in the 
 
 height of his dog- affection, to licking the face and 
 
 hands of his master, over and over again, until he had 
 
 communicated to them no small quantity of the blood 
 
 which had flowed from the hart's death-wound, and 
 
 which he had been lapping greedily. So, that when 
 
 Pierson came up, he presented a singularly ghastly and 
 
 almost appalling spectacle; for, between fatigue, loss 
 115 na 
 
120 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 of breath, and excitement, his face was ashy pale, and 
 the streaks of frothy arterial blood which crossed it in 
 many places, gave it exactly the resemblance of the 
 countenance of one violently slain. 
 
 A loud exclamation of dismay and grief burst from 
 the lips of the rude forester, as he knelt down by 
 Harry's side, raised his head upon his knee, and gazed 
 wistfully into his face. 
 
 At this moment, however, the brief fit of exhaustion 
 and faintness passed away ; and, as Archer's eyes re- 
 opened and fell full upon the hard angular features of 
 the Dutch hunter, grotesquely distorted from the effects 
 of sorrow and apprehension, he burst at once into a loud 
 hearty laugh, which instantly reassured his friend, and 
 satisfied him that he was not seriously endangered. 
 
 <' That's right; that's right, Mr. Aircher!" cried the 
 good fellow cheerfully, though a big tear, the offspring 
 of strangely mingled feelings, was rolling down his 
 dry withered cheek — <■<■ laugh at the old fool e'en as much 
 as you will ; right glad I am to hear you laugh inyhow. 
 I niver thought to hear you laugb agin, I didn't." 
 
 t' Why, what the deuce ails you, Dolph.^" eried 
 Harry, springing to his feet, as brisk as ever; " or what 
 should ail me, that I should never laugh again ? The 
 devil's in it, if, after running two miles over such ground 
 as I have just run, and at such a pace too, a fellow 
 may not lie down on the grass and rest himself. I was 
 
-^HE DEERSTALKERS. 121 
 
 dead blown, old fellow, nothing more. A good pull at 
 the Ferintosh will bring me about in a jiffy." 
 
 " But whar's all that 'ere blood corned from, say ^" 
 
 "Blood! what blood? man-alive, I believe you're 
 drunk or dreaming!" 
 
 " On your face, Mister Aircher. Arn't it your blood ? 
 well, I thought it was, for sartin !" 
 
 "I do not know," said Archer. "No, it's not my 
 ulood, I'm not hurt;" and as he spoke he raised his 
 handkerchief to his face, and with the aid of a little 
 water from the brook soon washed aw^v the filthy wit- 
 ness from his face. Then seeing Smoker, who, relieved 
 from all anxiety about his master, had buried his sharp 
 muzzle in the wide death-wound of the buck — " There 
 is the culprit," he added ; " poor devil, I suppose he 
 fell to licking my face, when he saw me lie down.'* 
 
 " Well, yes, he was a kind o' nuzzlin' at you, when I 
 seed him, and I'm an old fool, inyhow, not to have 
 thought of that afore. But do you call that lyin' down } 
 It looked a darned sight liker fallin'." 
 
 « Well, well, never mind which it was, Dolph. All's 
 right now ; so don't say a word about it, when those 
 chaps come up ; Fat Tom would crow^ for a whole 
 month, if he got hold of such a story on me." 
 
 " Niver a word, I," replied the hunter. " But come, 
 it's past now, and w^e've got e'enamost more nor we 
 we can do, to git these four bucks broken and hung up, 
 
122 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 SO as we can jine old Tom and that 'ere fancy chap 
 down at the outlet." 
 
 <' Well, let's be doing," answered Harry; '' but first 
 run to the brook, Dolph, won't you .^ and fetch us up 
 your big tin-cup full of water. For all the water's so 
 cold, I want a long drink, I tell you." 
 
 "Here 'tis," replied old Dolph, as quick as light. 
 " I've drinkt out on't, myself But I guess you won't 
 stand for that." 
 
 " Not I, indeed," said Harry, bolting the liquor. ''Now 
 I'm your man for anything — what's to be done first.'"' 
 
 " Fust! why fust we've jest got to go and find our 
 rifles, and load up. Where's yourn.'"' 
 
 " By the other hart, on the brook's edge. I threw it 
 down that I might help Smoker with this fellow, who 
 would, I thought, prove too tough a match for him. 
 Where's yours?" 
 
 '« Somew^heres on yan hill- side ; I thro wed it down 
 when I seed you fall. I dun' know w^heres — but I can 
 find it, inyhow, by taking the back track." 
 
 " Look here, then, let us gralloch this hart first, and 
 hang him somewhere. W^e'll have to carry him a hun- 
 dred yards, to that tree ; and as we have got four to 
 look after, we must lose no time, and take no steps 
 twice over. I'll break him up," he added, tucking up 
 his sleeves and drawing his long knife. " Do you run 
 and 'cut a ten-foot pole, stout enough to carry him, in 
 the coppice yonder." 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 123 
 
 No sooner said than done; and before Harry had 
 cleared the carcass of the offal, on which Master Smo- 
 ker blew himself out till he could hardly stir, Dolph 
 returned bearing a young straight dog-wood tree, of 
 some three inches diameter at the but, by ten or twelve 
 feet in length, which he had hewn down, and shaped 
 rudely w^ith his keen tomahawk. 
 
 " That's your sort, Dolph!" cried the young English- 
 man, who had by this time interlinked the legs of the 
 hart through the perforated sinews, as cooks will do 
 those of a partridge before roasting. " Shove it through 
 here. Put 'your shoulder to that end, and I'll hoist this. 
 Oh-he-ave!" 
 
 And, with the word, they raised the noble buck, pen- 
 dent from the pole, back and head downward, and 
 walked away cheerily under the heavy load, to the spot 
 where the other had fallen close to the ravine's edge. 
 Here Archer's rifle was recovered, and duly loaded ; 
 and the operation of breaking, or butchering, having 
 been performed on that hart likewise. Hairy mounted 
 to the fork of a young hickory which grew hard by, and, 
 with Pierson's assistance, hoisted one up on either side 
 tlie stem, and left them hanging there, a noble trophy, 
 the one with six points, the other with seven, to its 
 widespread and formidable antlers. 
 
 Thence they had a long and tedious walk up hill to 
 the spot where Dolph had cast down his rifle, and a 
 weary search ere they found it. A search rewarded 
 
124 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 only by success at last, in consequence of the extreme 
 sagacity of the Dutch hunter, and the houndlike instinct- 
 ive skill with which he tracked the light prints, invisi- 
 ble to any eye less practised than his own, of his own 
 bounding footsteps on the dry grass, and among the 
 leafless bushes. 
 
 Archer, who had attained not a little of that Indian 
 art of following the trail, had long been at fault utterly; 
 and, quite unable to discover any sign where Dolph 
 asserted positively that he could see clearly his whole 
 footstep, heel and toe, had given up all hope of finding 
 the w^eapon. 
 
 This task at last accomplished, and the unerring 
 piece loaded with the minute and patient exactness 
 which is so perfectly characteristic of the true back- 
 woodsman, the hardy pair set forth again ; and after 
 scrambling up the tangled and broken slopes of the burnt 
 pasturage for something better than half an hour, reached 
 the foot of the cliffs at about half a mile's distance from 
 the mouth of the ravine through which Harry had de- 
 scended. Here the same ceremony was performed on 
 Dolph's stag which they had already completed on the 
 others, and when he had been drawn up by the heels to 
 a dwarf oak, which shot out of the crag's face, nothing 
 remained for them to do, but to descend leisurely by 
 the brook's edge to the scathed tree, at the foot of 
 which lay the great mouse-coloured hart, which had 
 rewarded Archer's toilsome descent of the gully. 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 120 
 
 <' It's liim, by the Etarnal!" cried old Dolph, the 
 moment his eye fell on the carcass of the monstrous 
 animal. " It's him, iVircher, else I'll niver pull a trig- 
 ger arter this day ! Give us your hand, boy ; you've 
 done that this day, as '11 be talked on hereaways, arter 
 we're both cold and under the green sod. Yes, yes, 
 it's him, sartin. There's the crook horn, and there's 
 the white spot on his hither side, whar' poor Jim Buck- 
 ley's bullet went clar through him, as I've heern say by 
 them that was alivin' them days, these {\ urscore year 
 agone, and better. And they do tell as he was therij 
 w^hat you calls a hart royal, with a full head I means. 
 There's not a hunter in the range, as his father and his 
 grand'ther hasn't run this fellow, as lies here now 
 so quiet, with hounds, and on snow-shoes, in light 
 snows and on deep crusts fifty times, and niver got 
 within rifle range, 'ceptin Jim Buckley, and he lied in 
 wait for him like, over ten nights in May, up in the 
 crotch of a big tree, whar' he come bellin' for his hinds, 
 nigh whares he'd seen the frayin' of his horns like, on 
 the ragged stems, and so he shot him through and 
 through, with an ounce-bullet from an old-fashioned 
 yager, as was tuk from them Hoosian chaps at Trenton 
 in the Jarseys — but Lord a' massy, Mr. Aircher, he 
 stopped no mores for that ounce- bullet, than you'd stop 
 for a darned musquito bite when the hounds w^as makin' 
 music in a run way. He rared right stret an eend, and 
 shuck himself, and looked kind a savage like at Jim, 
 
126 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 and went off through the v^'oods jest the same as though 
 nauthen ailed him — and nauthen did ail him, likely." 
 Here the old hunter paused, looked about him with a 
 furtive and uneasy eye, and then added in a low voice, 
 as if he were half ashamed of the thoughts to which 
 he was about to give utterance, or fearful of uttering 
 them. " But su'thin ailed Jim Buckley arterward, they 
 doos say, Mr. Aircher, for that same day one year arter 
 a rifle went off of itself like in his partner's hand, and 
 the ball struck him nigh the blade-bone of his right 
 shoulder, and quartered through him, and corned out jest 
 in his flank under the lowest rib — ^jest the identical shot 
 as he gave the stag — but Jim was a dead man in five 
 minutes ; and the ball, it warn't nauthen but a little 
 triflin' fawty to the pound slug. I'm kinder sorry arter 
 all that you shot him ; they doos tell 'at no one niver 
 had no luck arterward that had so much as chased him, 
 let alone shot him." 
 
 "Ha! ha! ha!" shouted Archer merrily — «' Why, 
 Dolph, old lad, are you beside yourself this fine morning | 
 Why, to my certain knowledge, you have hunted him 
 with me three several times yourself, and shot at him 
 once, and I never heard yet of any very bad luck that 
 had befallen you — " 
 
 " Nor of none very good, nuther, I'm athinkin' ;" 
 interpolated Dolph, with an incredulous shake of the 
 aead. But Harry proceeded as if he had not heard him, 
 
 tf And for the rest, Dolph, you may be perfectly easy 
 
THE DKERSTALKERS. 127 
 
 for this time, I think. For you had certainly no hand 
 in this job from tlie beginning to the end. It was I, 
 who viewed him from the crags with my naked eye, 
 when you overlooked him ; it was I who recognised 
 him for the old crookhorn, with my glass ; I who 
 stalked, I who shot, I who bled him; and I, Dolph, 
 who will bear the brunt right merrily of anything tha^ 
 is like to befall me in consequence. Come, man alive, 
 don't look so wo-begone after the best morning's work 
 that has been done on the burnt pasture, these ten 
 years or better." 
 
 " These twinty year, I guess. But I ar'n't downcast 
 none, nor I don't believe the one-half of their parleyin'. 
 But you keeps a askin' me iyery now and then to tell 
 you the old talk of our wood-lads hereaways, and then 
 when I doos, you laughs at me." 
 
 *< Not I! not I!" said Archer, who had been busy 
 cleaning the carcass, while Dolph was ruminating on 
 the old-time superstition — " By the Lord Harry ! four 
 inches of clear fat on the brisket !" he ejaculated on a 
 sudden, f' I will dissect a dozen or so of these short 
 ribs, Dolph, and w^ith a bit of salt and pepper out of 
 my pouch, we will make a broil down by the lake-shore, 
 yonder, and with the hard biscuit and cold pork and 
 onions, and the drop of Ferintosh, we will have a feast 
 fit for kings, by the time those fellows come along. Fd 
 bet a trifle they haven't beat us yet awhile." 
 
 " There ar'n't no two men on this airth as kin," re- 
 
128 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 plied the old hunter, looking with an admiring eye at 
 his companion. <' For I will say that afore your face, 
 as I've said many's the time ahind your back, yourn 
 is the quickest eye, the steadiest hand, the coolest 
 heart, and the fastest foot, I iver see on hill or in val- 
 ley. Mine ar'n't so quick, or sure, or cool, by many 
 a sight, nowadays. I dun' know as they iver was ; and 
 for fastness, why when I was a boy, you'd have outrun 
 me jest as I kin a mud-turkle ; and then for knowin' sign 
 and followin' trail, and specially for puttin' things toge- 
 ther, and seein' what the hull sum of them tells — 
 though you was green as grass, and helpless as a year- 
 old babby when I seed you fust — there's not a many 
 as kin beat you hereaways, nor in the far west nuther. 
 Now, if I'd bin and done a wrong thing inyhow, and 
 kivered it up close so's no one should find it out who 
 dun it, and then med tracks, I'd rather fifty times have 
 fifty Feeladelfy lawyers, and half the woodmen in the 
 range arter my heels, as jest you onaccompanied like." 
 
 "Hush! hush! Dolph, you'll put me to the blush, 
 old boy ; whatever little I may know of the woods and 
 woodcraft, I owe it all to you." 
 
 "There ain't nothin', Aircher, in hearin' the truth, 
 or in tellin' the truth, right out, up and down, as should 
 make no gal blush, let alone no man. And it's truth 
 that I tell you. Hallo ! what's that— .?" as the distant 
 crack of a rifle came up the light air to their ears, from 
 the lake-shore. 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 129 
 
 Both turned their eyes instantly toward the point 
 whence the sound came, and a thin wreath of bluish 
 smoke was seen to curl lazily above the underwood and 
 to melt into the transparent skies. A moment afterward, 
 at about two hundred paces' distance from the spot 
 where the smoke was disappearing, a noble buck darted 
 from the covert at full speed, and plunging into the 
 lake, oared himself with his fleet limbs gallantly across 
 the limpid sheet, his graceful neck and antlered crest 
 showing like the prow and figure-head of some stately 
 galley, with the blue water rippling before the smooth 
 velocity of his motion. 
 
 A minute afterward, a man showed himself, rifle in 
 hand, examining the bushes and the grass under foot, 
 in search of blood or hair, or the track of the bullet, 
 thereby to judge whether his shot had been eflfective. 
 
 " Ay ! ay !" said Archer, laughing, as he recognised 
 the gay garb of his friend by aid of his telescope, " you 
 may look there these ten years, Master Frank, and 
 find no sign. That was a clear niiss ; hey, Dolph?" 
 
 " In course it was. Who iver see a man in sicli 
 fancy garments as them are, do anything but miss ?" 
 
 " He does not always miss, I can tell you, by a lon<'- 
 w^ay, Dolph," said Harry. «' But come, let's be 
 tramping. They are nigher to our meeting-place than 
 we arc." 
 
 <' But we'll do the distance in jest half the time." 
 *' T/.ue. But let's do it easy." 
 
CHAPTER VIT. 
 
 THE TRYSTING-TREE. *• 
 
 Hail, cool, refreshing shade ! abode most dear 
 To the sun- wearied traveller, wandering near. 
 
 Within a gunshot, or less, of the lake's brink, at a 
 point where the open ground meets the water without 
 any intervening fringe of wood or coppice, there stands 
 a gigantic pin oak, alone and older far than any of its 
 neighbours, and so immense in the spread of its 
 branches that it is commonly said by the foresters and 
 woodmen of that region to overshadow more than an 
 acre of land. Its limbs do not, however, sweep so low 
 to earthward as to prevent the grovvi:h of a soft and 
 mossy greensward even to its roots, or to exclude en- 
 tirely the play of the sunbeams, or the currents of air 
 which are ever vocal among its branches. 
 
 To this delightful canopy it was, that Harry Archer 
 and his comrade now bent their way, down the long 
 declivity of the burnt pasture, taking it easy indeed, as 
 *-he former had proposed to do, but still clearing the 
 
 130 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 131 
 
 g;rourjd at a very respectable rate, favoured as they were 
 by the descending surface. 
 
 The consequence was that they reached it, as Pierson 
 had predicted, long enough before Frank Forester and 
 Fat Tom had made their appearance ; and had already 
 set about their culinary preparations, while the jolly 
 Bonifade, sorely overdone and discomfited, was plung- 
 ing and crashing through the thickets of wild raspberry 
 and cat-briars, and stumbling over the burnt logs, bark- 
 ing his shins, and stubbing his toes at every step, 
 among oaths, imprecations, and obscenities which 
 might have been heard at half a mile's distance. 
 
 i'- 1 swon!" said Pierson suddenly, stopping short in 
 the act of transfixing a fat venison collop with a thin 
 stick of red cedar, w^hich was destined to supply the 
 place of a spit, as an appalling burst of execrations came 
 down the wind from the eastward, <' that 'ere Tom 
 Draw's a buster inyhow! I'd as lieve take a steam 
 ingyne a still-huntin' wdth me as that chap. Why, 
 Lord a"'massy, he'd skear ivery buck 'twixt here and 
 the beech- woods with his cursin'." 
 
 <' You don't catch him cursing, as you call it. Master 
 Dolph," replied Harry coolly, exposing the third steak 
 he had spitted to the fire, which was beginning to burn 
 up brisk and clear, '« when there's the least likelihood 
 of getting a shot. The old man knows, as well as you 
 do, that we are down here on the shore, and that we 
 have swept the whole of the burnt pasture ahead." 
 
li^2 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 5' 'Taint no Ava3\s, nohow," muttered Dolph, '' to be 
 amakin' sich a racket in the woods; I'm eenamost 
 ashamed to be seen companyin' with sich an awkerd 
 squad." 
 
 " Tush ! tush ! shut up, we have done well enoup^h, 
 1 should think, to satisfy you for one day. Look to that 
 steak, too ; it wants turning, if I'm not mistaken. 
 You've let it burn, Dolph, while you have been scolding 
 about nothing." 
 
 "Hilloah! hilloah !" at this moment, there arose a 
 clear cheery halloo from the wood, at some hundred 
 yards' distance, through which the new comers were 
 advancing. 
 
 '<■ Who-whoop !" responded Archer ; and thereupon 
 a merry laugh succeeded, and a loud exclamation in 
 Frank Forester's blithest tones; «' Come, come on, 
 you old villain ! I told you I'd back my nose against 
 your eyes and ears, any day. Don't I smell the fat of 
 venison dripping down on the brown crisp biscuits ? 
 Come along, do!" 
 
 " Nose — I'll be sw^orn you do ; nose out anything to 
 eat, or to drink either, you little gormandizin' cuss, a 
 mile off and better — but I'll fix you, boy, I'll fix you 
 tori2:hts." 
 
 And therewith, bursting through the green boughs, 
 the two worthies made their appearance, neither of 
 them, to tell truth, looking a great deal the better or 
 the livelier for their tramp ; for Forester's gay verdai-t 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 133 
 
 toggery was sorely besmirched, and the fine broadcloth 
 of his jacket torn into ribbons by the thoins and jagged 
 branches ; while poor Tom, sweating beneath his load 
 of flesh, literally " larded the lean earth,'' as he shook 
 it with his ponderous strides, and blew, as Forester 
 said, who in spite of all his disasters was in tip-top 
 spirits, like a grampus in shoal water. 
 
 ''How be you, boys ?" exclaimed the fat man, as 
 soon as he could recover breath enough to speak. 
 " Which on you'll do a good thing jest for oncet like, 
 and give a chap a drop o' suthin' ? That little cuss 
 has bin and drinkt up the hull of his own liquor, and 
 then hooked mine and drinkt it dry. He got so darned 
 drunk, Archer, now I tell you, that he missed the etar- 
 nal biggest, fattest, nicest, first-rate, six-year old buck, 
 in the brush thereaways, not ten yards ofi" on him, the 
 most all-fired easiest shot I iver did see." 
 
 "No! did he, though?" said Archer, winking to 
 Dolph to hold his tongue, as he handed the big flask 
 of Ferintosh to old Draw, who incontinently applied 
 the neck to his mouth, in utter contempt of the silver 
 cup which covered the bottom — " What do you say to 
 that, Frank ? I can hardly believe such things of you. 
 We heard the shot; did you not fetch him ?" 
 
 " I can't lie, Harry," replied Frank, with a sort of 
 bashful grin. '< I believe I did miss him clean; and 
 he gave me a pretty fair shot, too ; though not at ten 
 yards, as that most mendacious of all mankind, if he 
 
134 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 should not rather be called devilLifid, says ; but at some 
 thirty or forty. Yes, I did miss him clean. I looked 
 out sharp enough, but the deuce a drop of blood, orbit 
 of cut hair could I find ; nor could I even trace where 
 the b^ll had barked the bushes." 
 
 "We saw you, Frank! we saw you," said Harry, 
 laughing heartily. " It is w^ell for you that you stuck 
 to the truth, for if you'd told the least bit of a story, 
 we'd have fined you champagne for a dozen. But what 
 sport have you had ? what have you done ?" 
 
 " Torn my new jacket into ribbons ; scratched my 
 hands so that I shall be obliged to wear gloves for the 
 next three months ; and got a most furious appetite !" 
 
 " No doubt about the last item," said Harry, laugh- 
 ing, " but what in the shooting line ? — How many pair 
 of antlers?" 
 
 " I'll trouble you, Mr. Pierson, for that steak nearest 
 to you. Exactly ! Upon the biscuit, if you please, with 
 a pinch of the salt, and just one dash of the red pep- 
 per," said Master Frank, turning a resolutely deaf e* 
 to all questions in relation to vert or venison. 
 
 "Well, Tom, what have you got to say for yourself?" 
 
 f'Nauthen much, nohow," responded the fat man, 
 scratching his head, doubtfully ; " that 'ere darned little 
 Wax-skin, atween his peagreen jacket and his silver 
 rifle, and his etarnal awkard ways, and his hollering, 
 wheniver he got a little ways off in the woods, for all the 
 vorld like a peacock in rainy weather, skeart all the 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 135 
 
 deer clean off the range. We might have had ten nicest 
 kind of good fair shots, for we've seen more nor that, 
 but he got jest one shot, and that, as you seed, he missed 
 shameful, and I — I — " 
 
 *' Well, you ? — what next ? out with it, or it'll choke 
 you — what did you do ?" 
 
 it I kilt one, as he skeart, and it corned kind o' quar- 
 terin' acrost my track. It war a plaguy long shot, tew, 
 but I downed it." 
 
 " One I ah ! that was the first, you mean. Well, and 
 how many since ?" 
 
 t'Why one, I tells you — darn your etarnal stupia 
 head ! carn't you so much as understand a chap, when 
 he speaks right down English V 
 
 " Oh ! one more. Well, how did you kill him } was 
 it since you struck the burnt pasture V 
 
 " I telled you afore. It was one as he skeart, and it 
 corned kind o' quarterin' like acrost my track. It was 
 a plaguy long shot, tew, but I downed it — " 
 
 " Confound you ! that is the same you told us about 
 first of all. The second, I mean — how did you ^q\ the 
 second .'"' 
 
 " There ar'n't no second." 
 
 " No second ! why you said one\ and when I asked 
 you how many since, you said on^ ; that makes two, as 
 I learned when I went to school." 
 
 "One's one; and you knows it, darn you! Yoy 
 carn't make two out of ©re, nohow," 
 116 
 
136 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 " And you, I think, can scarce beat us two, with 
 one buck between you. We'll treat all the town to 
 niglit, and Dolph, here, will have to get drunk, wolves 
 or no wolves !" 
 
 '< How many have you got, Aircher } More nor one ? 
 say !" 
 
 " Tell him, Dolph. He's such a Turk, he won't be- 
 lieve me, if I tell him the truth." 
 
 '« Well ! we've got six, I reckon. And if I'd onlj' 
 a' had two barrels, it might jest as well a' been wven ! 
 But it's a good day as it is, inyhow; and so," he 
 added gravely, " we'll be thankful, and not swear none, 
 if you please, Mr. Draw." 
 
 "Sartin.^" replied Tom interrogatively, his eyes 
 glistening eagerly, between envy and admiration ; for, 
 having in view the Dutch hunter's well known veracity, 
 he did not for a moment question his assertion. " Six ! 
 Did you for sartin, though? and how many on 'em did 
 that plaguy critter git ?" — and he pointed to Harry as 
 he spoke. 
 
 '' Pretty nigh all on 'em, for that," responded the 
 Dutchman. <' He's too much for me, Mr. Draw, iny- 
 ways ; and I guess that means for you too — we're 
 gittin' old and stiff, and you're gittin' fat — " 
 
 "Getting fat!" shrieked Frank, who, by aid of the 
 fat juicy venison steak, and two or three deep libations 
 of the Ferintosh, had recovered his impudence at least. 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 137 
 
 if not his equanimity — " I wonder what the devil he 
 will be, when he has got fat !" 
 
 "Fat be darned!" replied the Falstaff. " Fat niver 
 hindered no one of doin' nauthen yit, as I knows on ; 
 and I can tell you, I can outwalk, outdrink, outshoot, 
 outrun, out " 
 
 " Lie !" interposed Frank. 
 
 ^^Oiii-do — " continued Tom, "these cussed Yorkers 
 at iverything ; let alone lying, which iverybody knows 
 Forester here whips creashun at. Didn't you niver 
 hear, Dolph, how he was brought up to give evidence 
 at Newark, in the Jarseys, and he swore right stret up 
 and down, and sticked to what he swore uncommon 
 hard ; and the more the lawyers they tried to bother 
 him, why the more little Wax-skin couldn't be bothered 
 nohow ; but kind o' bothered them back wust kind, so 
 as they couldn't make nauthen on him ; nor nauthen on 
 the case nohow ! For you see jest this time, kind o' for 
 fun like and to make folks wonder, Frank he wor tellin' 
 pretty nigh the truth — 's nigh as he could tell't, inyhow 
 — and his ividence was a raal stumper ; there warn't no 
 gittin' over it, and the defendant's attorney seed that 
 too — a darned etarnal 'cutest kind o' small chap he 
 was — a leetle mite of a chap to have sich an ungodly 
 sight of brains — Pll stand treats twenty times for him, 
 if iver we comes togither — well, he upped, and he 
 summed up to the jury ; and he made an all-fired long 
 talk on the other witnesses, and showed as all they said 
 
138 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 warn't nautlien ; and so it warn't nauthen, inyhow ; and 
 the jury they didn't want tellin' that, I reckon. Well, 
 when he got to P'rank here, he says, <Now, gentleme/i, 
 we come to Mister Forester's ividence, gentleTTim ; and 
 mio"hty darned strong ividence it is tew ; if only so be as 
 one could believe one word on it.' — Then Forester here, 
 he beginned to twist up thim darned long moustaches, 
 and tried kind o' not to laugh, and to look savage tew ; 
 and the jury they beginned to stare, and to wonder, 
 likely, what was acomin' next. Then torights he 
 went on agin, and says he — < But the trouble is, one 
 carn't believe a word on it ; and nobody won't nor no- 
 body don't believe a word on't — bekase how's they 
 agoin' to believe, or how's you agoin' to believe, gentle- 
 men, intelligent and enlightened and idicated men as 
 you be, as a man what makes his livin', what aims his 
 daily bread, genWemen, and his daily brandy tew— and 
 a darned lot of the last, I reckon— by doin' no one thing 
 but writin' G — d d — n lies, kin tell the truth if he wants 
 to? Gentle?7ie?i may say what they pleases about 
 oaths, and the sanctity of oaths ; but I tell you that habit 
 are stronger and more sancterfied than oaths alius, and 
 if a man aims his bread by writin' lies, why it stands 
 to reason as he carn't help tellin' lies tew, and the more 
 he'll try not to lie, why in course the more he will lie, 
 o-entlemen !' And so he sot down ; and the jury they riz 
 ap ; and gave a vardict for the defendant stret away. 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 139 
 
 You harn't got iiauthen' to say agin' that, Forester, no- 
 how." 
 
 "Nothing whatever," replied Forester, gravely. 
 "Nothing. It is quite true, upon my honour. And 
 the foreman of the jury said afterwards, I believe, that 
 it didn't matter so much for Pet — that was the lawyer's 
 name — showin' as Mr. Forester wTote lies — for his part, 
 he thought no one shouldn't be believed on his oath, aa 
 could write at all, leastways more nor to keep a set o' 
 books, or make out a bill of sale." 
 
 "Be that true though?" — asked Dolph, who had 
 been listening very attentively, and who in his plain 
 untutored common-sense had been able to discover nc 
 fun in such petty low-minded iniquity — " be that true, 
 sure enough ?" 
 
 " True that the lawyer made those remarks, and that 
 the jury gave that verdict ? perfectly true, upon my 
 honour !" replied Archer. " I was staying with Frank, 
 at the Cedars, at the time, and heard it." 
 
 " And what did the Newark chaps dew to that ar' 
 jury ? We'd a' ridden 'em on rails, I guess, here, iny- 
 ways; and gin 'em a lick o' tar, and a dash of feathers." 
 
 " They did not. « They werry much applauded wot 
 they had done,' — because Mr. Forester is something 
 of a gentleman, and gentlemen are not popular in those 
 diggings ; and because he can read and write, which 
 is esteemed very vulgar by the rich would-be^s, who foi 
 tlie most part cannot.'''^ 
 
140 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 " It's a darned shame, inyhow," said Dolph. 
 
 t'You must remember that small countryfied cities 
 dre not the cvomitry — the free open honest independent 
 country, Dolph ; and that pedlars, and traders, and 
 petty manufacturers are not yeoman and landholders, 
 any more than they are merchants, or gentlemen." 
 
 " They think they is, I guess," responded Dolph. 
 <i At least to judge from the airs they take on with us 
 countrymen." 
 
 <■<■ Who could buy and sell the whole of them — both 
 for means and for manners — both for intelligence and 
 uprightness ! but away with them ! give me a cup of 
 Ferintosh, I must wash the taste of hats and sole-leather 
 out of my mouth, before I shall be worth a farthing for 
 the rest of the day." 
 
 *' That's all quite right, as you says, Harry," put in 
 old Tom ; «' but how many o' them six deer did you kill, 
 Harry, I'd be pleased to lam V 
 
 " I killed five, Tom. Two double shots — and one 
 single. And what's better yet, I fetched the big 
 crooked-horned mouse-coloured hart, that they talk 
 about so much here ; the old fellow, I mean, which 
 they say has been known on this range, these hundred 
 years." 
 
 "These hundred and fawty years," said Dolph, 
 quietly. " I wish you hadn't killed him, Mr. Aircher, 
 though. There'll be blood come on't afore the year's 
 through — I knows." 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 141 
 
 <'Tusli! tush! Dolph. Take a drop of Feiintosh, 
 man, and drive such nonsense out of your noddle. 
 We've done stalking, for this day, I fancy. For Tom 
 and Frank, here, seem to be pretty thoroughly done 
 over, and I don't know whither we should go, to look 
 after more game." 
 
 "Nor I nuther ; leastwise, onless w^e was to cross 
 for the range beyond the black crick ; and that's ten 
 mile aw^ay." 
 
 '< And if it were not one, I would not meddle with it, 
 for it is to be our to-morrow's beat, is it not, Dolph ?" 
 
 " I reckon so," 
 
 <' Well, then, we'll cook another round of steaks and 
 biscuits, and take another pull at the flasks, and then 
 we'll have a smoke ; and by that time it will be none 
 too early that we should think of starting on the home- 
 w^ard track." 
 
 " But whar's the boys, Tom ?" inquired Dolph. " I 
 hopes you harn't left them down at the mill, like. 
 Leastways, if you have, I don't know how the plague 
 we'll get the deer home as we've killed; and I wouldn't 
 like to let them be out hereaways all night, I tell you." 
 
 " No, no. They'll be here torights ; black Jake he's 
 a bringin' one o' them ponies along the skirt o' the 
 wood where the ground is the smoothest, and your boy's 
 fetchin' the big batteau from the mill, and a canoe at 
 the tail on't. They'll be here torights ; I swon. Look! 
 here's black Jake acomin' now!" 
 
142 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 " So he be, so he be," returned Dolph. " Well, Pll 
 stop and give him his orders, for I guess he won't 
 understand you so slick as he will me ; and then, while 
 he's bringin' the deer, what we've killed and cleaned, 
 down from the hill, I'll away down to the cedar crick 
 and bring up our canoe what we came in, Mr. Aircher." 
 
 '^And how are we to work our cards after that, 
 Dolph ?" inquired Frank, who, having partaken heartily 
 of the second steak, had lighted his pipe, and stretched 
 kimself out in the full autumnal sunshine, with a cup 
 of delicately tempered Ferintosh at his hand, a picture 
 of the dolcefar niente. 
 
 <' Why, Mr. Forester, I've bin athinkin' that this fat 
 man, what doos iverything better nor no one else, is 
 pretty much used up ; and you, I guess, would jest as 
 leeves set still upon your hinder eend, as walk another 
 five miles through them pine woods " 
 
 <« What you say right is perfectly true, Dolph. I 
 honour you for the acuteness and correctness of your 
 views." 
 
 <t There's nauthen so very cute's I see, in knowin' 
 when two chaps is nigh dead beat. But 's I was sayin', 
 I've bin athinkin' that the best way'll be to let Jake 
 ride the pony back, arter he's brought all the deer 
 down from the hill, to the road at the mill ; and Ben '11 
 take the batteau with the four bucks we've got hereaways 
 down the inlet, and I'll tell him whar' he'll find the 
 other two 's Mr. Aircher shot at the fust go to. And 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 143 
 
 then I'll paddle one on you and Mr. Aircher paddle the 
 t'other along the lake to Cobus's mill ; and then you 
 and Tom '11 take the ponies, and I and Mr. Aircher, 
 why we'll foot it." 
 
 " A capital plan, Dolph," said Harry, '' all but one 
 thing. Ben will never get the batteau up the inlet to 
 the bridge, while the world lasts, with those six deer in 
 it. No, no. Put two of the four we've got here into 
 tlie batteau, and let him pick up the other two on the 
 way; he will have work enough, I'll take my oath of 
 it, to pole them up, and he won't get through so without 
 touching. Jake can load the last two I shot on the 
 pony, as he goes home, take it through the woods to 
 the main road, and so to Dutch Jake's tavern. For the 
 rest, Tom can ride, and Master Frank must foot it down 
 with the rest of us !" 
 
 "Well, well, if he kin," replied the Dutch hunter, 
 with a dubious shake of his head, " if he kin, I'll not 
 gainsay as it's the best plan. But I dun' know " 
 
 "You don't know what? that I can walk six miles 
 this fine evening?" cried Frank, indignantly. "Let 
 me tell you, Mister Pierson, I can walk sixty of them, 
 if I take a fancy to it ! Six miles ! why, bless your heart, 
 I'll bet you five to four, I'll do it in an hour!" 
 
 "Don't you bet, Dolph; don't you bet!" cried 
 Harry, quickly. " He can do it like a shot. He's as 
 lazy as anything can be, when he's not driven to it, but 
 shove him, and he ca^x put, I tell you." 
 
!44 THE DLERSTALKERS. 
 
 " The tallest kind, he can," interrupted Tom. '(■ I 
 won't hear no one sayin' nauthen' agin little Wax-skin, 
 for all I tucks it into him myself, a little. He'd walk 
 you into fits, you long Dutchman, any time. I'll go 
 you a single X on it." 
 
 " For quickness he might, maybe, but not for hold 
 on, old as I be." 
 
 " Speedy's a good dog, but Holdfast's a better," said 
 Frank, merrily. "But I can hold on a few, for all 
 that, Mr. Pierson." 
 
 " Fve known him walk twelve miles, five minutes 
 within two hours ; and a hundred, between five o'clock 
 on Saturday night and twelve on Monday night, without 
 training," said Archer. " Don't bet with him, Dolph ; 
 he's hard to beat, I tell you, any way that you take 
 him." 
 
 " He's half boss !" said Tom, clapping his protege 
 on the back, " though he did skear all the deer with his 
 gimcrackery to-day." 
 
 ''Well, how does my plan suit.?" asked Archer, 
 looking to Frank. 
 
 " Oh! I'm agreeable, provided only we go home the 
 same road we came," said Frank; winking his eye 
 knowingly at Tom. 
 
 u Why? what the devil do you care, by which road 
 you go home ?" 
 
 '' I want to have another look at something I saw 
 
 this morning. 
 
 55 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 145 
 
 <'A woman, hey, Frank? — By George! you've got 
 ahead of me ! I never heard of anything attractive in 
 this quarter." 
 
 '< Have you not ? ah ! what do you say, Tom ?", 
 
 " The prettiest piece of gal's flesh I've laid eyes on, 
 since I see that gal you was asparkin' down to York, 
 Aircher — that time as you wouldn't know old Tom in 
 Broadway." 
 
 " It's false, you old thief! I never cut you at all ! 
 Though, heaven knows, it is not for the want of your 
 deserving it oftentimes enough. But was the girl so 
 pretty, Frank?" 
 
 <■(■ Pretty, no ! not at all ! That's not the word. She 
 was beautiful — lovely — exquisite. — The loveliest thing 
 I ever saw, except Lady Ellenborough, Harry. A pro- 
 fusion of golden hair, large soft dark-blue eyes, a Gre- 
 cian profile, a mouth that you would die, ten years 
 before your time, to kiss once — a complexion like snow ; 
 and a figure not to be equalled by anything I ever saw 
 alive or in marble." 
 
 i' A lady, Frank?" 
 
 "Decidedly, not a lady!" 
 
 " Where did you see her?" 
 
 " At the door of a small but very pretty cottage, a 
 mile or so beyond the mill on the homeward side." 
 
 "Ah! I don't know, indeed. A good hunter used 
 to live there, when I was up here last, two years ago ; 
 Dut there were no vronienfolk about the house then. 
 
146 TIIK DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 Holloa, Dolph," he continued, turning to tlie hunter, 
 who was busy instructing his negro where he would 
 find the carcasses of the slaughtered deer — "who is this 
 beautiful girl, these two noodles are half mad about?" 
 <^ How should I know?" replied Dolph, rather shortly. 
 "Now then, Jake, you understand me, make tracks, 
 and keep the pony goin', for we've no time to be alosin'. 
 Now", Mr. Aircher" — he added, turning round to that 
 worthy, having seen the negro depart, " what's this 
 about gals? I niver knowed as you was a gal man." 
 
 "Thunder!" exclaimed Tom. "I'd be pleased to 
 know who is, if so be Aircher isn't!" 
 
 " What gal is't, inyhow ?" added Dolph. " I knows 
 o' no gal oncomraon pretty. There^'s quite a chance 
 o' good-lookin' ones, but none 's I know oncommon." 
 " They saw her at the door of the house, as far as I 
 can make out, that used to be Harry Barhyte's, but he 
 has got no sister, that ever I heard tell of Who can 
 she be, Dolph?" 
 
 " Other than a good 'un," responded Dolph with a 
 sort of groan, his whole countenance changing as he 
 spoke. 
 
 "What! what! a naughty woman up in these wild 
 woods?" cried Forester, laughing, for he had not seen 
 the bold hunter's face, or noticed his expression, as he 
 spoke. " I had no idea such things were to be found 
 so far from cities." 
 
 "They're to be found, Mister Forester, wherever 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 147 
 
 women are found !" replied Pierson very shortly. " And 
 it will be well for you, if you don't learn as much some 
 day." 
 
 " Or rather," interposed Archer, " w^herever me?i are 
 found to make them evil. Before God, and on my 
 honour, I believe that the worst woman that ever lived 
 was better in many points, and those the finest of our 
 nature, than tfife best man. But who is this girl, Dolph 
 Pierson ?" 
 
 *« The w^ife of Harry Barhyte." 
 
 ii Indeed!" 
 
 '<#Ay ! indeed ; and she's half crazed, and hull ruined, 
 the finest lad in this quarter; and all for a mean, 
 cringin' cuss, as isn't to be talked of alongside of 
 Harry, more nor a shot-gui^ is alongside of a true- 
 grooved rifle." 
 
 "Ah! I am sorry to hear this," replied Harry, 
 thoughtfully. «' Harry Barhyte was a fine fellow, and 
 did me a great service once. What is it } Taken to 
 rum, hey?" 
 
 " I'm afeard so. And she, as should hold him back, 
 eggs him on, hopin', I'm athinkin', as he'll drink him- 
 self dead one of them bouts, so's she can folly her own 
 wicked notions." 
 
 " A very fiend ! Who was she, Dolph .?" 
 
 " Why, you've seen her fifty times, and more ; and 
 held her on your knee in past days, Mr. Aircher. She's 
 
]48 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 barly seventeen now. You'll remember pretty Mary 
 Marten?" 
 
 <' Great God ! that sweet, merry, innocent little child! 
 How horrible ! how horrible ! — but sit down, sit down, 
 Dolph, and tell us all about it. You have said too much 
 to stop now." 
 
 " I ar'n't got time now^ ; look ye here, Ben's comin' 
 down the pond like a strick, and Jak^s got the deer 
 from the cliffs, and the big mouse- colour, and 's raakin' 
 tracks this away. I must be off arter the other canoe, 
 or we'll niver git started, nohow. But don't you be 
 afeard, I'm not agoin' to shirk off. I'll tell you all as I 
 knows on it, arter supper, at Dutch Jake's tavern. I 
 will, Mister Aircher. You knows what I says I'll do, 
 I doos." • 
 
 <' I know it," said Harry ; and lighting a cheroot, he 
 too stretched himself out on the turf, and began to 
 smoke diligently. But a damp had been thrown over 
 the spirits of the party, even more by Pierson's manner 
 than by his words, and little more conversation passed 
 until Dolph returned, and almost simultaneously Ben 
 arrived with the batteau, and the negro, with the two 
 finest harts. 
 
 The rest of the arrangements were speedily made ; 
 and in less than ten minutes the whole company was 
 afloat. Ben Pierson sweeping the big batteau, loaded 
 with the noble quarry, toward the inlet of the pond ; 
 Dolph paddling Frank Forester, to carry whom Archer 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 119 
 
 had absolutely refused ; and Harry piloting old Tom 
 toward Cobus Vanderbeck's mill, with the gallant 
 Smoker swimming along as staunchly and as fleetly in 
 the wake of the canoe, as if he had not run a mile since 
 daybreak. 
 
 The sun, now near its setting, poured a flood of in- 
 tense golden lustre over the transparent lakelet, among 
 which floated the clear shadows, purple and emerald 
 green, of the near woods and distant mountains. Not 
 a breath of air rippled the bosom of the serene water, 
 or waved one branch of the loftiest trees on its wood- 
 girdled shores. Not a sound w^as to be heard, but the- 
 measured dash of the paddle, and the gurgling of the 
 foam heaped before the bows of the sharp, fleet vessel ; 
 and now and then, the caw, mellow^ed by distance into 
 a pleasing murmur, of the homeward crows. It was an 
 evening in itself all peaceful, and such as would have 
 inspired thoughts of peace to any soul that could mark 
 its beauties, and be penetrated by its delicious influ- 
 ence. 
 
 But how many are there not, even of those whom the 
 world calls good and wise and great, who cannot spare 
 the time from their all-engrossing race after sublime 
 imaginations, which are in truth less than nothing, to 
 mark the beautiful sublimity of nature, and learn the 
 love of the Creator even from the loveliness of his cre- 
 ated things ? 
 
 What w^onder, then, that the rude and ignorant and 
 
foO THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 lowly, whose life is one fierce struggle against suffering 
 and sorrow, should dwell among such scenes uncon- 
 scious, and creep from their cradles to their graves, 
 unsoftened by the influences which move the poet's 
 soul even to tears — though not of sadness ! 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD CURSE. 
 
 The very fiend's arch mock — 
 To lip a wanton and suppose her chaste. 
 
 Shaespeare. 
 
 It was already dark when the hunters arrived, travel- 
 worn and hungry, at the hospitable portico of the 
 country tavern, where they w^ere received by the inde- 
 fatigable Timothy with tidings, that there were " no but 
 faive minnits to spare afore 't dinner's be upon t' tea- 
 ble ; so it behooved them look raight sharp an if they 
 thought to shift themselves." 
 
 " I think to shift myself, for one, Tim," said his mas- 
 ter, good-humouredly ; "so bring up some hot w^ater 
 to my room as quick as you can." 3^ 
 
 " Ditto," said Frank, before Tim had time to reply. 
 
 «« T'het wathur is bin i' boath your ro-ooms this 'our 
 
 and better," he replied, half disgusted as it would seem 
 
 by the insinuation that a valet of his discretion should 
 
 have been guilty of such a solecism as to allow gentle- 
 
 117 ' m 
 
152 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 men to retire to their dressing-rooms unprovided with 
 the first requisite of the toilette. 
 
 " It is pretty cold water, I should fancy, then, by this 
 time, Timothy," said Frank, with a laugh at his own 
 sharpness as he conceived it. 
 
 «« Noo, Measter Forester, did you Iver ken me to do 
 a varry simple thing?" 
 
 " I cannot say that I ever did, Tim." 
 
 " Weel, and ay reckon 'at you niver will, gin you 
 were to live mair nor a hoondred years, and a hoondred 
 upon 't back o' them. And ay think it wud be a varry 
 simple thing i'deed to tak t' hot wathur oop into twa 
 cauld chammers. Nay, nay, Measter Frank, that's not 
 the way as things is doon i' t' West Raiding. There's 
 twa good blazing fires i' t' stoves, laike, and t' kettles 
 boiling atop on 'em. But gang your gait, gentlemen, 
 or t' dinner '11 be overdoon, and then ay's be bla-amed 
 for 't, ay's oophaud it." 
 
 Within ten minutes, however, their ablutions per- 
 formed, and fully rigged from head to foot, Harry and 
 Frank made their appearance in the little parlour, where 
 the table awaited them, spread with its clean white linen 
 and decorated with its glittering glass and silver, and 
 its four tall wax- lights. 
 
 Here they were speedily joined by Tom Draw, who 
 had contented himself with a wash under the pump, 
 Dolph declining to form one of the party, but promising 
 
THE def:rstalkers. 153 
 
 to join them as soon as they should have got through 
 dinner. 
 
 Then, without farther delay, Timothy set upon the 
 table a laro-e tureen full of the stron2;est and most 
 delicious mutton broth, as hot as lava, and as perfectly 
 concocted as the most fastidious palate could desire. 
 
 This capital potage was followed by a matelote of 
 eels from the neighbouring mill-pond, which Frank, 
 having imbibed a large bell-glassful of dry straw- 
 coloured sherry after his soup, pronounced equal to 
 anything that he had ever tasted, even at the RocJier de 
 Cancale, the house jmr excellence of all the world, be it 
 known, for fish. 
 
 " I don't think much of eels, nohow," grumbled Fat 
 Tom, holding out his plate for a second helping, "but 
 that ar' rich gravy with the onions and spices and 
 Madeira wine doos help them some, I swon. Now, 
 then, Tim, ar'n't you agoin' to open one of them long- 
 necks?" 
 
 Tim glanced a doubtful eye toward his master. 
 
 «« Not for your life, you varlet, until the venison's on 
 the table. Champagne with fish, indeed ! — It's as bad 
 almost as Tom Dragon, who would eat ham with his 
 canvass ducks at Snedecor's. It spoiled my appetite 
 for the day, and I could drink nothing for a week after- 
 ward. Another such shock to my gastronomic nerves 
 would surely kill me. No! no champagne ; give him 
 
154 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 a tumblerful of whiskey, if he wants it, and me a 
 thimbleful—" 
 
 <' And me ditto!" chimed in Frank Forester. 
 
 " And then bring us the haunch ! and that done, Tom 
 shall be gratified wTth a dash at the Siller j/ sec! Upon 
 my word !" he added, as the smoking haunch made its 
 appearance, covered with two inches of fat, crisply 
 embrowned to the most delicate golden hue ; " it is as 
 fine a one as I have seen these three years. Fill up the 
 glasses, Tim ; we'll drink Dolph's health for this, at all 
 events in his absence. Another slice, Tom? — It eats 
 short, don't it, Frank .^'"^ 
 
 <' As short as pufi-paste — a glass of champagne with 
 you, Harry ?" 
 
 « With pleasure." 
 
 " And what the d — 1 have I ben adoin' that I carn't 
 be let into that 'ere party? With only three men, it's 
 a burnin' shame for tw^o on 'em to be guzzlin' by them- 
 selves selfish like ! Besides, 'taint fair noways, for 
 w4ien w^e all gits tight, you'll be aswearin' I was drunk 
 fust, or some sich thunderin' lie." 
 
 <■(■ Help yourself, man alive ; but don't think, much 
 less talk about getting drunk, there's no such w^ork as 
 that to be done to-night. Let me giA^e you another 
 slice, Frank ; Fve got a prime cut yet, with a beautiful 
 streak of fat." 
 
 " You are irresistible, Harry. But won't you keep 
 me company ?" 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 155 
 
 «' To be sure I will. I am only beginning to eat. 
 I'm a whale at venison, as poor Mac used to say." 
 
 "Poor Mac, indeed!" 
 
 <' Fust-rate stuff that creawn wine o' his was. I hain't 
 niver tasted nothin' like that, niver since," said Tom 
 with a sigh of regret, not for the excellent fellow who 
 had departed, but for the excellent wine the memory 
 of which yet dwelt on his palate. 
 
 " Nor ever will, I fancy," said Harry. " The taste 
 for champagne in this country is as bad and as false as 
 it can be, and I think the wine gets worse every day. 
 If it is tolerably dry it is as thin as vinegar, if fruity and 
 strong it is as sweet as molasses. This is about the 
 best in the market, but it is poor thin stuff to my fancy." 
 
 "What is it.^" 
 
 " They call it the Thorn." 
 
 " Let them call it the Thorn ! What else have you 
 got for dinner, Timothy ?" 
 
 " Some Stilton cheese and caviar, sir." 
 
 " Fill round the end of that champagne, then ; and 
 let us have a bottle of the old port with the cheese." 
 
 " Ay, ay, sur ! It's been doon afore t' fire airing laike 
 sin' you set doon to t' teable !" 
 
 " I hope not too near. If it is too warm it will be 
 all day with it." 
 
 "Nay! nay! sur, ay's oophaud it's raight. Noo, 
 mun ay get t' poonch-bowl .?" 
 
 " Of course you must, and the devilled biscuits, and 
 
156 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 the pipes; and that done, see if you can't scare up old 
 Dolph somewhere or other." 
 
 "He's waiting i' t' bar-room whaile you've got dean." 
 
 " That's well. What the deuce is the matter with 
 you, Tom ? Don't be sick upon the table, man alive ! 
 What ails you, spitting and sputtering in that way .''" 
 
 But up got the old man, in spite of all exhortations, 
 rushed to the window, heaved it open might and main, 
 and spit out a mouthful of the caviar w^hich he had 
 taken, utterly unconscious w^hat he was absorbing — an 
 action w^hich was followed by a burst of most vehement 
 imprecations, and by a reiterated appeal to Timothy for 
 brandy, a tumbler full of brandy without the darned 
 drop of ^w^ater, to wash out the taste of that ere filthy 
 pison stuff, w^hat Aircher 'd sot upon the table jest to 
 kill a fellow with. 
 
 It was a long time before Frank and Harry could 
 pacify him at all, for their enormous and irrepressible 
 laughter at first confirmed his idea that a premeditated 
 trick had been played off upon him, and that he had 
 been induced to eat what he styled «'some all-fired 
 ongodly nastiness, of Aircher's fixin'." And it was 
 only on seeing Frank and Archer apply themselves to 
 the odious dish with the gusto of genuine epicures, tliat 
 he transferred his abuse from the filthiness of the caviar 
 to the bestiality of them that could eat such " stinkin' 
 trash." 
 
 A brimming bumper or two of port did much, how- 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 167 
 
 ever, to mollify his indignation, and by the time that 
 the punch made its entree^ accompanied by pipes, Turk- 
 ish tobacco, and devilled biscuits, the serenity of his 
 visage and the amiability of his demeanour were per- 
 fectly restored. 
 
 By this time, also, Dolph had come upon the scene ; 
 and, having filled his pipe v/ith kinnekinninck, and 
 accepted a single rummer of the fragrant punch, at 
 Harry's bidding he began the narrative anent Harry 
 Barhyte and his handsome wife : — 
 
 *' Well, Mr. Aircher, there ar'n't much of a story no- 
 how, and what there is, is right sad and dismal. It's 
 two year since, no longer, that Harry Barhyte, as you 
 knowed him in them days, the smartest and likeliest of 
 ail the young chaps hereaway, and the best with the 
 rifle a great sight, began to be afollowin' and hangin' 
 round like, arter Mary ; she was scarce fifteen year old, 
 and the purtiest gal the sun shone down upon ; but she 
 was wild and flighty then, and I niver thought no good 
 would come on't ; seein' I'd noticed how, the year afore, 
 she carried on with black Ned Wheeler, till old Mar- 
 ten he concailed as things had gone far enough that 
 away, and turned Ned out o' doors ; and arter that Jie 
 turned wickeder, and wilder, and more drunkener than 
 iver, and it 'ud well nigh make your hair rise stret on 
 eend to hear how he'd rave and rip and roar, and call 
 down cusses on the gal and all her kin, and swear ven- 
 geance on any one as should so much 's look at her, 
 
158 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 let alone like her. Well, aiter a spell like, he 'listed 
 and went off South somewheres, Florida ways, I reckon, 
 and warn't heerd tell of for a many a day. And 
 Mary she did nothen but laugh and jeer like, and grew 
 wilder and merrier and flightier than iver ; and carried 
 on wusser nor afore, only she carried on jest alike with 
 all the boys now, where afore she only carried on with 
 Ned like. Still I conraited as she liked Ned, as well 
 as her triflin', vain charakter 'ud let her like iny one ; 
 and so I telled Harry Barhyte. But bless you, Mr. 
 Aircher, he was as crazy as a loon, and rared right up 
 on eend, and swore she wor the best and modestest and 
 lovin'est gal in the hull range ; and hollered at me so 
 as I couldn't stand it nohow. So he and I kind o' 
 cooled off like, and hain't niver bin right friends since. 
 Well, for six months, or better, Harry and she wor one 
 day sparkin' it the sweetest kind, wanderin' about in 
 the woods, with his arm about her waist, and her hand 
 clasped in hisn, or sittin' down by some clear brook- 
 side, with her head leanin' on his shoulder, and her big 
 blue eyes lookin' up into hisn as tender and as melan- 
 choly as a faan's. And the next day agin, she'd start 
 right round, and likely carry on jest as free with some 
 other chap, and not so much as throw a word to Harry, 
 or give a civil answer when he'd speak to her. But it 
 warn't no use, nohow. He seemed to be all the keener 
 arter her, the wuss she used him, and what should 
 a' turned him right agin her, sot him the stronger on her 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. ]59 
 
 side. And I dun' know how 'twas at last, out she 
 made Harry believe as she loved him, and it warn't 
 nothin' but her youth, and light heart, and merriness ; 
 but I knowed — I did — that them was signs of a bad 
 heart, not a light one, and of a devilish character. But jest 
 so it was sot to be, and so it had to be, and so it was ; 
 and arter quite a spell of sparkin' and foolin', off and 
 on, why they got married ; and ' Harry tuk her home ; 
 and he had iverything fixed nice about her ; and pro- 
 vided raal well for her ; and niver went to the tavern 
 like, but passed his evenin's to hum alius, and w^as the 
 steadiest, best-doin'est, and fondest husband in the 
 country. And for awliile she seemed to be contint, 
 and happy, and proud of Harry as he wor of her, and 
 with more cause, I tell you, for if she had good looks, 
 he had good natur' ; and what's raal is better nor w^hat's 
 seemin', inyhow. Arter awhile, agin, she kind o' got 
 weary, it seemed, and uncontint at hum, and kept on 
 the run to the neighbour's houses like, and carried 
 on agin with the young boys, like as if she hadn't bin 
 a married woman ; but Harry he w^ouldn't see no harm 
 in it, though it w^as plain to see as he was sad b3^times, 
 and thoughtful, and grieved badly, that she couldn't 
 stay to hum like and be happy by her own fireside. 
 And then black Ned come hum, with his discharge , 
 for he'd got wounded pretty smartly by them Injuns, 
 down in Florida— the wuss luck as they didn't kill 
 him! — and then there was H — in the house right 
 
160 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 away ! For she'd be mopin' haaf the time, and cryin' 
 and sulkin' like a hurt she-bar, and the next minnit 
 agm, she'd be quarrellin' and hollerin', and vexin' 
 Harry's heart out. So that he tuk to comin' down to 
 Jake's, and spendin' all his time there pretty nigh ; and 
 drinkin' till all's blue ; and what's wuss yet, he got 
 friends with black Ned ; for he couldn't work none, for 
 his wound like, but loafed round the bar, and now and 
 agin 'ud hunt or fish a spell, and so H — to hum drew 
 Harry into idleness ; and idleness, that led him into 
 drinkin' and drinkin' into friendship with black Ned ; 
 and whereaway that ar' will carry him, it's easier 
 guessin' nor knowin !" 
 
 " A sad story, indeed," said Harry, with a sigh. " I 
 am sorry for Barhyte ; the other fellow was a scamp 
 always, and I have little doubt a very ruffian. Are 
 Harry and he friends yet .^" 
 
 i' Bless you, yes! Friends ! why she's persuaded him 
 to take black Ned to hum, into the very house ; and he 
 lives there all as if he wor Harry's brother; while 
 iverybody else can see what Harry's eyes is sealed to. 
 and haaf of his old friends is droppin' off from him ; 
 and some says he's a fool, and some says he's poor- 
 hearted, and lowminded, and that he winks hard at his 
 own disgrace. But iny man as says so fa, Mr. Aircher. 
 For Harry's blinded by his own trustiness and his own 
 honest natur', and he loves that blackhearted jade with 
 his whole soul ; and Pd not hint to him, what we all 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 161 
 
 of US knows her to be, no, not for a thousand dollars, 
 leastways if I didn't want a rifle-bullet driven through 
 my brain-pan." 
 
 <■<■ What strange infatuation ! how deplorable ! and 
 yet he used to be a clear-headed, rational, strong-mind- 
 ed man," said Archer thoughtfully. 
 
 " I've heern say oftentimes, Mr. Aircher, that it is jest 
 them very men, cl'ar-headed, and strong-minded, as 
 men carn't fool with nohow, as is the easiest and wust 
 fooled by women. How is't ? I dun know much about 
 them she-critters, nor doosn't want to know. How is't?" 
 
 " I fancy that you are not far wrong, Dolph," replied 
 Archer, with a smile. " But what will be the end of 
 it? Harry must be undeceived some day or other, and 
 then—" 
 
 " And then, I dreads to think what'll turn up. 
 Harry'll kill him sartin if he should catch him, and I 
 doubt somehow he'd not live hisself lonof arter." 
 
 " And she ?" asked Harry Archer, with an expression 
 of strong interest, as he investigated this strange and 
 tortuous plot of rural crime and passion. 
 
 " She! she's as safe from him, as if she w^or in heaven, 
 where she w^on't niver be ! Why he'd not harm a hair 
 of her head, nor say a word agin her black wickedness, 
 though he knowed all about it. But she's a drivin' him 
 to death and to desfTeration, and means, I guess, to drive 
 him. I'd not wonrler not a mossel, to see Harry Barhyte 
 dead, and Ned Wheeler married to his wife, afore the 
 
162 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 leaves is green agin upon them hills. He's failin' ivery 
 day, I see that cl'arly. But it's agittin' late, and I've 
 told my tale, and now I'll be movin'. For if we 
 means to scour the black brook range to-morrow, we'd 
 needs be afoot by daylight or afore." 
 
 " And that is precisely what we do mean," said 
 Archer. '<• So good-night, old friend, and rouse us up 
 before the sun to-morrow. Fll away to my bed, my- 
 self, shortly." 
 
 But, notwithstanding his expressed intention, he did 
 not move, but sat there with his head buried in his 
 hands, evidently pondering deeply on what he had 
 heard, until Frank Forester, who, knowing nothing of 
 the parties, was less deeply moved than Archer, asked 
 him half jocularly what ailed him, that he pondered so 
 gravely on the sins and sorrows of this rustic Mars and 
 Venus. 
 
 " Do not joke, Frank," he answered ; " it is no jok- 
 ing matter. I know both of these unhappy people well. 
 Barhyte once saved my life, or something very like it, 
 when my foot had slipped, and I had fallen on my back 
 within six paces of a wounded bear, my rifle empty, 
 and neither knife nor tomahawk at hand. The girl, as 
 old Dolph told you, has set on my knees a hundred 
 times, when she was an innocent and lovely child. I 
 cannot think of these things, look first upon this picture 
 then on that, without being deeply moved. Beside 
 which, I know the character of these people so well, 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 163 
 
 that I anticipate the occurrence, even in this secluded 
 valley, of some terrible domestic tragedy." 
 
 <' Pshaw! Harry, you look too gravely on these mat- 
 ters. People of this kind rarely or never have so keen 
 sentiments of honour, or feel so much abased by degra- 
 dation of this sort as to have recourse to any very sangui- 
 nary vengeance, much less to suicide, which you seem, 
 I think, to apprehend." 
 
 "It is you who are in error, Frank, not I. What 
 yoa say maybe very true, probably is true of the small, 
 paltr}', peddling burghers of the cities, of the toilworn 
 and brutalized artisans of the factories, nay, even of the 
 dull drudging peasants of the open country. But these 
 men, independent yeomen, wild free foresters, living a 
 life of continual excitement, incurring constant peril, 
 familiar with the use of arms, their whole lives from the 
 cradle to the grave one wild and strange romance, 
 these men, I say, feel wrongs done to their sense of 
 honour as keenly, and avenge such as ruthlessly, as the 
 red Indian whom they have supplanted in these hunting- 
 grounds ; and for this poor fellow in particular, this 
 Harry Barhyte, I am as sure that he will not survive, as 
 that he will avenge the loss of his honour, and the rob- 
 bery of his wife's affections. It makes me sad, and it 
 makes me sick, to think of it, and yet I do not see what 
 can be done." 
 
 «* Nothing can be done, Harry," replied Forester, who 
 was now as era^ e as his friend. " Interference in such 
 
164 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 matters only makes tbem worse ; and involves those who 
 v.'ould do ^ood in the catastrophe, if there be one. 
 Nothing can be done, Harry; except what T think the 
 best for both of us, to take one more glass of punch, 
 tumble into bed, and wake up with brighter thoughts, 
 please God, to-morrow morning." 
 
 " I believe so," said Archer, with a sad smile at his 
 friend's quaintness ; and in a moment or two afterward 
 the night-lamps were lighted, and they retired to rest, 
 tired enough to make it nearly certain that sleep would 
 not long avoid their pillows. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DISCOVERY. 
 
 He lay where he had fallen. Slain outright, 
 No parting struggle had convulsed his limbs, 
 Nor changed the grave composure of his face, 
 Languid and melancholy. 
 
 MS. Poem. 
 
 The sun was just rising on the morrow, when Dolph 
 Pierson aroused the friends from the unusually heavy 
 slumbers, which had fallen upon them in consequence 
 of the severe fatigue and excitement of the past day. 
 But once awakened, they were on foot and alert on the 
 instant, and having speedily despatched the ample cold 
 breakfast which was set before them, Harry and Fores- 
 ter got under way with the Dutch hunter. Old Tom, 
 who was completely overdone by the tramp he had 
 undergone, and by the disgust he had encountered in 
 being beaten so disgracefully in spite of all his brag- 
 ging, prepared to lie by, and try his luck at the Picke- 
 rel and Pearch, for which the lake above was famous. 
 
 Taught by his yesterday's experience, Master Frank 
 had donned, in lieu of his bright pea-green hunting- 
 shirt, a dingy fustian shooting-jacket, with breeches of 
 
 1G5 
 
166 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 the same material ; nay ! he had even concocted some dark- 
 coloured composition witli which to dim the bright silver 
 mountings of his rifle. Dolph looked at him for a moment 
 with one of his grim approving smiles, and then turned to- 
 ward Archer with a wink so inexpressibly ludicrous, that 
 he could not restrain himself, but burst into a fit of obstre- 
 perous mirth; whereat Frank, wheeling upon the culprits 
 unexpectedly, took them both in the fact, and shaking his 
 fist at them good-humoured ly — 
 
 " You villains !" he exclaimed, " what deuced trick are 
 you playing off upon me now 1 Out with it, instantly, and 
 I'll forgive you ; but if I find it out hereafter, my name is 
 not Frank Forester, if I don't pay you back, with interest." 
 
 " No trick, upon my honour, Frank," replied Archer. 
 " Nor much joke, either, for that matter. At least what 
 joke there was is past and over. But come, let us get into 
 the drag, which Timothy has got at the door, and I'll tell 
 you all about it as we drive to the bridge over the Black 
 Creek." 
 
 " Yes I yes !" said Pierson, who had resumed all his ha 
 bitual gravity ; " we've got no time to lose, for it's gittin' 
 to be broad day, now, and we should be in the woods afore 
 the dew 's off, inyhow." 
 
 Within two minutes, one of which was consumed in 
 donning upper benjamins and lighting pipes or manillas, 
 according to the various tastes of the sportsmen, the two 
 friends were mounted on the front seat, Dolph and Timothy 
 occupying that in the rear. The horses sprang at Harry's 
 cheerful whistle, and away rattled the light vehicle, over 
 the well-made limestone road, in the same direction which 
 had been taken by Forester and Tom Draw on the previous 
 morning. 
 
 " Now then, the joke, Harry !" said Forester. 
 
 " Pshaw 1 it was mere nonsense. Dolph wanted to put 
 you out of conceit yesterday with your fine toggery and 
 brio-ht gun-mountin2s, and I beseed him not. That's all, 
 upon my honour !" 
 
 "That's all, upon your honour! and a very modest all, 
 too ! So you spoiled my day's sport, and won Tom's bet, 
 just to poke fun on me ! By Jove, that's too bad ! I 
 should not have expected that, at your hands !" and Frank's 
 
IKE DEERSTALKERS. 16? 
 
 face flushed even to the roots of his hair, as he spoke, from 
 very anger. 
 
 " Nor I this at yours, Forester," replied Archer, gravely. 
 ** But it is of no use minding what you say, you little wasp. 
 I would not let him tell you, because I knew right well thai 
 if your costume or your skill in woodcraft were attacked, 
 you would defend them, like Decatur, right or wrong, and 
 wear them, to the ruin of your sport, for a week, perhaps 
 for ever, from the sheer love of paradox. Whereas, by 
 letting you alone, I knew that one day's experience would 
 teach you the truth, and that you would adopt it, as you 
 have done. I think it was the friend's part." 
 
 " By gin ! that's jest what he telied me, Mr. Forester,'* 
 put in Dolph Pierson, " and jest what I could a' telied you, 
 only he's worded it some better nor I could. So don't be 
 vexed with him, noways." 
 
 " It was but a poor compliment to my reason, at all 
 events," said Forester, who had been too much discom- 
 posed to resume his equanimity on the instant. 
 
 " But a very good one to your aptitude at taking hints 
 from experience," replied Harry. " Come, don't be sulky, 
 old boy ; between you and me, that would be something 
 too inexpressibly absurd." 
 
 There was no resisting this ; so Frank gave his friend 
 an amicable dig in the ribs, that would have pretty nearly 
 knocked the wind out of a rhinoceros, and said, " All right, 
 old fellow ; but do you really think I never take advice ?'' 
 
 " f think that if you did you would be a prodigy. I 
 never saw a man who asked for advice until he had made 
 his mind fully up how he should act, at all events. Now, 
 you had not asked advice, but thought you knew, as you 
 said when you drove poor McTavish ten miles above the 
 saw-mill turn to Warwick, responding only ' Don't I 
 know V to all his suggestions that you were out of the road, 
 all his entreaties that you would inquire vour w^ay. ' Don'l 
 I know ?' carried you that night to Coffee's Tavern, in the 
 Cove, when you would surely have discovered your mistake 
 at the bridge, if he had not pointed out vour err^r, and so 
 roused your spirit of resistance and set you on the defensive, 
 * Don't I know?' would have kept vou in o-reen and silve 
 118 . o 
 
168 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 to-day, if 1 had let Dolph speak to you. You ought to be 
 very much obliged to me, for now you do know !" 
 
 " And I am very much obliged to you ; and, faith ! I 
 believe, after all, that one lesson learned of that hard 
 teacher, Experience, is better than a dozen from that soft 
 persuader, Good Advice. For my part, I only hope that 
 you will always stick to your new system ; for in very 
 deed I think good advisers are the most odious persons in 
 the universe." 
 
 *' I will ; depend upon it, Frank. So far at all events as 
 you are concerned. I made my mind up to that long 
 enough ago." 
 
 " Look here, Harry ; this is the cottage, I spoke of to you 
 last night, that we are just coming to, on the right-hand side. 
 Cannot you frame some excuse to stop ? I have a curiosity 
 to see something farther." 
 
 "And I. Look quietly behind,and see if Dolph's pipe is 
 out ; Timothy is not smoking." 
 
 " It is. He has just put it into his pouch," replied Fo- 
 rester, after casting a furtive glance behind him. 
 
 " And I threw mine away, half a mile back. Drop yours, 
 as if by accident, get out another, and ask Dolph for a light; 
 and, as I know he has got no flint for his tinder, apply to 
 me in the second place, and as I have forgotten my matches, 
 we shall have to pull up and ask for what Dolph would 
 term a coal of fire." 
 
 No sooner said than done. The cigar was dropped aa 
 if accidentally, and the next moment Forester took out his 
 cigar-case, selected a cheroot, and, turning his head to old 
 Pierson, said aloud, 
 
 " Give us a light, old fellow. I have lost mine." 
 
 ** My pipe is out too," replied the old hunter ; *« it has 
 not been alight these ten minutes." 
 
 " Ah ! we must try a match, then. Come, Harry, out 
 with the Lucifers, lad !" 
 
 For a minute or two Archer affected to search in the 
 various pockets of his great box-coat for the desired match- 
 case, but at length, with a negative shake of the head, he 
 made answer — 
 
 " It is no go. Master Frank. I have forgotten my match- 
 case at home ; and a devilish stupid forget it is ; for I don'i 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 169 
 
 see how the jilague we are to get lights, any how. No 
 more smoking at all tor this day." 
 
 " 1 never ccm stand that," said Frank ; " I can as well 
 get along without a drink. Oh ! look you, here's a cot- 
 tage, Harry; pull uj), and we'll beg for a light there. By 
 Jove !" he added, as if he had been surprised, " it is the 
 place where the pretty woman lives, about whom we were 
 speaking." 
 
 " It is so," answered Harry, gravely. " Well, we will 
 get a light ; but mark me, no chaffing." 
 
 " Chaffing !" replied Frank, quickly, " I should think 
 not of that, indeed ; what the deuce should have put such 
 a thought as that into your head ?" 
 
 " You know you're good at it sometimes, Frank," replied 
 Archer, wth a grave smile. " But don't get savage ; I did 
 not mean to offend your high mightiness I" 
 
 And as he spoke he pulled up the horses at the door of 
 the cottage, which had once evidently been extremely neat 
 and pretty, with a portico of rustic make, all overrun with 
 evergreens and flowery creepers. It had, however, although 
 still comparatively a new building, already fallen into par- 
 tial decay, and exhibited those symptoms by which a keen 
 observer would easily judge that the master of the house 
 was a drunkard, or the mistress a slattern. 
 
 "What ails you, to be stoppin' here, Mister Aircher?" 
 asked the old hunter shortly, and in a tone which indicated 
 anything but pleasure at the occurrence; "we hain't no 
 business here, none on us — this is whar' Harry Barhyte 
 lives, as I telled you on." 
 
 " I know it, Dolph," replied Archer, " but we have all 
 lost our fire, and we have brought no matches with us, 
 and Frank here for the life of him can't walk the day 
 through without smoking." 
 
 " There won't come no luck on it, nohow," responded 
 the hunter. "If so be I'd a knowed this, I'd a brought 
 you by the other road." 
 
 " Pshaw ! nonsense !" replied Archer; " what harm can 
 conie of it, any way? Halloa!" he added, raising his 
 voice, " is there any one at home ?" 
 
 Almost as quickly as he spoke, the woman came to the 
 door. She was, as Frank had described her on the previo'is 
 
170 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 day, a singularly beautiful, and, for her class in life, a singu- 
 larly delicate-looking creature, with a quantity of soft light 
 brown hair falling in dishevelled, and, to speak the truth, 
 somewhat disordered masses down her neck; large blue 
 eyes; a fair complexion ; and a figure of slender yet sym- 
 metrical proportion. 
 
 For all this, however, her appearance and the impression 
 she produced on the minds of the young men were the very 
 reverse of attractive or agreeable. There was a bold eager 
 look in her eye when it met theirs directly that struck them 
 as immodest and offensive, and a sidelong glance yet more 
 obnoxious, as she lowered her lids in a sort of affected mo- 
 desty as Archer addressed her. 
 
 Her dress, moreover, was unseemly, at least when viewed 
 in relation to her place of abode in a remote rural district 
 amid wild mountains, and to her condition in life, for it had 
 been originally of expensive materials, and rather tawdry 
 colours, and had been fashioned to display the shape, and 
 reveal far more of the neck and bosom than is usual among 
 country maids or matrons. 
 
 " Pardon us for troubling you, madam," said Harry, re- 
 moving his hunting-cap ; " but we have lost our light, and 
 called to see if you would have the goodness to let us have 
 a coal of your fire V 
 
 " No trouble, sir, I assure you !" she replied, with a very 
 pecuhar glance, and a still more peculiar expression of 
 voice. '* I shall always be too glad to oblige you in any- 
 thing which you can ask me." 
 
 And, without waiting for an answer, she tripped into the 
 house, and returned almost instantly, bearing in the tongs 
 a piece of a blazing brand of wood, which she handed to 
 Archer, who passed it over to Frank, and, as if in reply to 
 her last speech, said, in a friendly familiar voice, 
 
 " I am glad to see that you recollect me, Mrs. Barhyte, 
 for it is a very long time since you sat on my knee when 
 you were pretty little Mary Marten. I fancied you must 
 have quite forgotten me." 
 
 " I do not forget so easily, Mr. Archer," returned the 
 woman, with the same disagreeable sidelong look — " ymi, 
 especially ;" and then, as if aware that she had gone some- 
 ihino- too far, she hesitated a moment or two, and added — 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 171 
 
 " for those were very happy days ; and, whatever folks may 
 say about it, I think that it is easier to forget sorrow than 
 happiness." 
 
 " It is a merciful gift of Providence that it is so," replied 
 Archer, gravely. " But I am sorry to hear you speak as 
 if you were not happy. I was quite glad when I heard 
 you were married to Harry Barhyte, Mary, and thought it 
 such a nice match. For you were ahvays quite a pet of 
 mine, and he was mv friend — a man I was 'proud to call 
 my friend," he added with marked emphasis. 
 
 "That was when he was his own friend. Mi Archer," 
 replied the woman, a little sharply. 
 
 " And is he not so, now ?" 
 
 " He is very much changed ; very much, since you knew 
 him, sir." 
 
 "Ay! is he?" cried the old hunter sternly, and with 
 more vehemence than he was wont to exhibit ; " but what 
 changed him? Tell us that, Mary Barhyte — tell us what 
 changed him ?" 
 
 The woman blushed fiery red, from the very roots of her 
 hair to the edge of her dress, and drooped her eyes and 
 kept silence, abashed and humbled. 
 
 In her eagerness to coquette wirh the two gay young men 
 who sat on the front seat, she had not spared a glance to 
 the inferior personages behind, and consequently had not 
 discovered the pn^sonce of Dolph Pierson. 
 
 "And v/here is Harry Barhyte, now?" said Archer; who 
 while observing everything closely, had pretended to be en- 
 gaged solely in lighting his cheroot. " 1 should like to see 
 him, before I leave the country." 
 
 " He is out with his rifle after deer," she said, raisinof her 
 eyes agam to Archer's, with a half look of invitation ; "I 
 scarce know wliich way he is gone. I think he said toward 
 the Eagle Rock. But if you call in after dark this evening, 
 you'll be pretty like to find him." 
 
 " And is Ned Wheeler away with him, too?" asked the 
 old hunter, with a peculiar intonation. 
 
 " What would I know about Ned Wheeler?" she asked, 
 very angrily, instead of answering directly ; but then, 
 after a moment's pause, as if something flashed upon hor 
 mind, she added, quickly : " No, he is not away with him ; 
 
172 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 Henry's been gone since daylight, and Ned passed the door, 
 with his gun in his hand, not ten minutes since ; you'll 
 overtake him, I reckon." 
 
 ^'Passed the door, did he? — he don't often do that, doos 
 he, Mary ?" 
 
 *' I told him Henry wasn't in," 
 
 " Hum-hum ! and that was the cause why he passed it, 
 hey ? I'd a thought now as he'd likely a corned in and sot 
 R spell, to git a light for his pipe like, or a drink — " 
 
 "We don't keep no drink here, Mr. Pierson ; and you 
 know that as well I do." 
 
 " I don't know nothen on the airth about it, nor don't 
 warn't to, Mary. You can't say as I iver was inside your 
 doors." 
 
 " Nor I don't wont to see you there !" she replied almost 
 fiercely, with a gleam of flashing anger in her bold eyes ; 
 but then turning to Harry, " but you, sir, I shall be glad 
 to see at any time ; and so will Henry, for he speaks of 
 you very often." 
 
 " I thank you ; I will call if I do not meet him to-day. 
 Good-morning to you !" and once more touching his cap, 
 he gave his good steeds their head, and away they bowled 
 up the road toward the base of the wooded hills that tow- 
 ered above them in huge billow-swells of many-coloured 
 foliage. 
 
 They had driven perhaps a couple of miles at a slashing 
 trot, not holding much conversation among themselves, for 
 the past interview had set them all to thinking pretty deeply, 
 and a sort of inexplicable gloom hung over the whole 
 party, when they overtook a tall slouching shambling- 
 gaited fellow, carrying a long rifle in his hand, and pro- 
 ceeding in the same direction with themselves. 
 
 " Who have we here, Dolph ?" asked Archer, who having 
 his eye well forward on the road, was the first to catch 
 sight of him. 
 
 " Black Ned ! don't you see how he snoops along, like 
 no honest man would?" 
 
 Harry smiled at the rough hunter's attributing the trick 
 of the man's gait, the result probably of the wound to which 
 he had himself alluded, to certain mental qualities; but 
 knowing the uselessness of arguing such points with one 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 178 
 
 at the same time so single-minded and so prejudiced as 
 Pierson, he made no reply. 
 
 A moment afterward, however, as he ran alongside of 
 the stranger, he checked his horses for the instant, partly 
 to observe liis features, and partly to gain some infoimation. 
 
 The first were villanous enough ; a low, receding hrovs-, 
 parti;il1y overshadowed by tangled elf-locks of uncombed 
 black hair, a broken-backed hawk nose, a pair of keen, 
 running, cruel, dov/n-looking black eyes, a thin-lipped, 
 compressed mouth, wifh a constant stream of tobacco-juice 
 oozing from its corners. He had not turned his head to 
 see v/ho were the new-comers, though the clattering trot of 
 such a team, and the even roll of such a vehicle, were 
 sounds most unfamiliar to any ear in that tract of country, 
 nor did he now raise his eyes as the horses shot past him, 
 and immediately moderated their speed under the guidance 
 of a master hand. 
 
 " Mister Wheelpr, I believe ?" 
 
 " Ned Wheeler is my name ; but I don't know yourn, no 
 how," was the surly answer. 
 
 " Mine is Archer," replied the young man ; " but that 
 will not help you. I heard you were before us on the 
 range, and as we shall pass you with our horses, I thought 
 it fair to inquire, as you have the start, which side of the 
 road you mean to hunt ; I would not wish to interfere with 
 any man." 
 
 "Well, that's fnir, anyhow," answered the other, though 
 he looked as if he half suspected a trap. "I did think as 
 Vd drive over to the right hereaways, toward the black 
 swamp in the Indian holler. Harry Barhyte, he's gone 
 along the top to the Eagle Rock, and so he'll be sendin' the 
 deer down to the swamp, I reckons." 
 
 " We will keep to the left, then," said Archer. " Good- 
 morning !" 
 
 And away he drove, at the same slapping pace as before. 
 
 "Now, if I might be so bold, Mister Aircher," said the 
 hunter, who had maintained a dogged silence during the 
 whole of this brief colloquy, " I'd be right well pleased 
 anvwavs, to know whv vou did that 'ere?" 
 
 " Did what, Dolph ?" ' 
 
174 THE LEERSTALKERS. 
 
 " Spoke to that ere darned scoundrel at all, fust---and 
 next, guv him his chice of beats." 
 
 " I wanted to look at him, first, Dolph !" 
 
 "You must be tartial fond ot' seein' humly sights, then," 
 replied Pierson. " You'd be hard set, I guess, to find a 
 humlier picter atween this and York." 
 
 "He is most villanously ugly, of a truth," said Harry, 
 musing. " And is it possible that handsome creature pre- 
 fers this vile, low-bred, hideous brute, to so gallant and 
 tight a lad as Harry Barhyte V 
 
 " Wimen goes preUy much l)y contraries," replied Pier- 
 son. "Them as is good to them, they behaves wust to; and 
 them as conducts wust to them, they niver can love hard 
 enough. But Harry's e'ena'most as bad as Ned be, now. 
 But why give him his chice of ground?" 
 
 " I had my reason for that, too, Dolph." 
 
 " So I 'xpect — most men has some reason for all the 
 darned things they do — leastwise they thinks they has, and 
 that's a'most the same thing. But I'd like to know what 
 yourn mought 'a bin." 
 
 "I wanted to be sure whither Barhyte has gone; and 
 v/hether this dog was going to join him." 
 
 " And do you reckon you're sure now 7" 
 
 " Pretty sure that Barhyte has gone to the Eagle R<^ck. 
 Where is the Eagle Rock, Dolph ?" 
 
 " Right stret ahead on us, up the big hill yonder. You 
 see them big black pines up three-parts to the top," he 
 added, pointing with his hands ; " well, it is right over 
 them, jist high enough that you can see clear over the tops 
 on 'cm." 
 
 " Is it good laying ground for deer, now ?" 
 
 " None in the whole range better. All along there the 
 mountain side is full of springs, and the sile's moist, and 
 the fern grows up four and six feet high. 'Tain't such 
 very bad walking nuther, for it's in sort of terraces, one above 
 another, pretty level like." 
 
 " Well, if you think it good, Dolph, we'll bear off here a 
 mile or so to' the left, that I may keep my word with that 
 scoundrel, and then we'll strike right up the crags, and 
 beat those terraces you speak of to the eastward. Will 
 that suit you ?" 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 175 
 
 "Bravely," answered the hunter, "though we shan't 
 see nothin' in the bottom. But a mile off to the left there's 
 a grand waterfall comes down the hill in a sort of gorge 
 we can climb pretty easy, and oncet up, thar's three terraces, 
 one right above the other; so there'll be just one for each 
 on us, within hailin' distance." 
 
 " All right, then. How much farther have we to go, 
 Dolph?" 
 
 " One mile to the Old Mill corner." 
 
 " Look back. Forester, and see what that scamp is doing ; 
 the road is so straight, he must be in sight still," 
 
 " He is just turning into the covert to the right-hand,'* 
 said Frank. " What the devil do you care about the brute 
 for?" 
 
 " That's more than I can tell you. Master Frank ; but 
 some how or other I've a fancy that something's going to 
 happen out of the common way to-day. It's all infernal 
 stuff, I know ; for Heaven be thanked, I am not in the least 
 superstitious, nor do I believe in presentiments ; but I cannot 
 get it out of my head that something horrible is in the wind, 
 and that this fellow Wheeler is at the bottom of it. It hangs 
 over me like a black cloud. I never felt so in my life 
 before." 
 
 " I should think not," said Forester laughing ; " nor I 
 neither. If I were you, I'd take a good pull at the Ferin- 
 tosh, and feel so no more." 
 
 " I don't know but you're right, Frank ; ^nd here we are 
 at the Old Mill, so while Tim is getting out the traps I'll 
 follow your advice." 
 
 " What you say right is very true; so'll I," said Forester, 
 and incontinently they both imbibed moderately; but when 
 Dolph was invited to follow suit, he shook his head gravely, 
 and made answer solemnly — 
 
 " A warnin' is a warnin", and shouldn't niver be made 
 light of, no how. I dreamed of nothin' else but blood all 
 night, and I thought when I riz up this mornin' that blood 
 there would be; but now that Aircher's got a warnin' tew, 
 I'm sure on't. God send it mayn't be some of us." 
 
 Forester stared at the man in nuite admiration. At first 
 he thought he was jesting, then he began to imagine that 
 he had gone mad, but there was as little of insanity in the 
 
176 THE DEERSTALKERS, 
 
 clear steady gaze of the blue eye as there was of mirth on 
 the unbending lip. 
 
 The old man met his inquiring glance with an ominous 
 shake of the head, and then applied himself to load his 
 heavy rifle, without saying a word. 
 
 Forester was on the point of bursting into a furious fit 
 of laughter, when Harry touched his elbow, with a warning 
 glance, and said, " Come, Frank, we're on the ground ; you 
 had better load your rifle." 
 
 " Ay ! ay ! Harry." 
 
 " And you, Timothy, drive the horses on to the foot of 
 the hill, and bear away one mile to the left ; there's an old 
 charcoal-burner's shanty there, where you can bait the 
 prads, and get your ov.n prog, and wait for us. Is not 
 that right, Dolph ?" 
 
 " Right, Mr. Aircher 1" 
 
 " Now then, all ready !" 
 
 " Ready !" cried Frank, and the old hunter nodded his 
 quiet assent, and all three plunged together into the ever- 
 green hemlock covert to the left hand of the road. 
 
 It was heavy and toilsome walking in itself, for the 
 ground was a deep vegetable loam, and the frost not having 
 had sufficient force to consolidate it — for it was much 
 water-logged from innumerable small springs and runs — 
 though it had crusted over an inch at the top, the foot 
 broke in at every step nearly ankle deep in the miry loam. 
 
 Add to this that the greater part of this flat at the base 
 of the mountain was overspread with dense thickets of hem- 
 lock and white cedar saplings, between the stems of which 
 it was a work of actual labour and difficulty to force the 
 
 body. 
 
 The single mile which they had to traverse, therefore, 
 before they reached the course of a large powerful rapid 
 brook, bringing down a great force of perfectly clear ice- 
 cold water, flowing here over a broad pebbly bed in a shal- 
 low current, occupied them full two hours, incredible as it 
 may seem to those who have never fought their way through 
 a cedar brake, in which there is neither path nor runway. 
 And when they reached its margin, although the day was 
 clear and sharp, the sweat was dropping from the brows 
 of Forester and Archer as if it had been in the dog-days, 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 177 
 
 and even old Pierson himself, moulded as he was of cast- 
 iron, was flushed and blown with the fatigue. 
 
 All three were glad to lie down for half an hour on the 
 mossy margin of the water to rest them before climbing 
 the hill, and this time Pierson did not refuse his share of 
 the moderate cup. Then Harry's match-box having been 
 discovered in an unusual pocket, all the three smoked a 
 quiet pipe, and that done, arose, refreshed and ready for a 
 steep mountain scramble. 
 
 Ten minutes' walk thereafter brought them to the mouth 
 of the gorge in the hills whence the stream issued ; and 
 just before they reached it, Dolph whispered to the two 
 young men to have their pieces ready, for that the cataract 
 was close at hand, just round the first angle in the path, 
 and that there was often a chance of a shot there, when the 
 run was well up, as it was at this time, the deer coming 
 down to the cool water to avoid the pursuit of the torment- 
 ing flies. 
 
 The gorge itself was bold and fine, the stream rushing 
 out in a broad sheet of snow-white foam between two great 
 gray limestone rocks, which towered on either side to the 
 height of at least a liundred feet, crowned with feathery 
 crests of hemlock, forming in this place the first step of the 
 mountain ridge which soared away, clothed to the very top 
 with forests, well nigh three thousand feet in air. 
 
 Following the motions of the wary forester, the sports- 
 men entered the pass, th ridding a narrow ledge of rock 
 which ran like an abutment along the base of the moun- 
 tain wall, elevated only a few inches above the whirling 
 foam-flakes. 
 
 Within, the goro;e wheeled directly to the right, and 
 along the right-hand side they stole carefully, with their 
 fore-fingers on the triggers of their rifles, holding their 
 breaths in the intensity of their eaoerness, and feelins their 
 hearts knocking hard against their bosoms. 
 
 Two more steps brought them to the angle; and facing 
 them, as the gorge wheeled again upward to the left at 
 eome fifty yards distance, thundered the foaming waterfall. 
 It was indeed a grand and striking scene; for, aUhough the 
 height was inconsiderable, not exceeding fifty ftet, the vo- 
 liHTje of water was considerable, and the fall, dashing on a 
 
*.78 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 flat rock at the foot, flung oif a glancing sheet of broken 
 water in all directions, like the fragments of a crystal mir- 
 ror. The accessories too of the wild scene, the black 
 rocks, the richly feathered evergreens, relieved by the 
 M'hite spray, and illuniinatcd by one stray sunbeam which 
 fell almost perpendicularly on the very shoot of the fall, 
 were all perfect in their colouring and keeping. Add to 
 this that the roar of the fall, reduplicated by the echoes of 
 that enclosed amphitheatre, boomed with ten times the 
 majesty of sound which the same cascade would have 
 emitted in an open space. 
 
 Short time, however, had they to gaze at that moment 
 on the wonders or the beauties of the spot ; for there, on 
 the very summit of the cataract itself, upon a crag which 
 split the falling waters into two parts, although at a few 
 feet below they joined again and descended in one common 
 volume, there stood as fine a hart as ever gladdened the 
 eye of deerstalker. 
 
 The noble animal was gazing up the glen as Forester 
 and Harry entered the amphitheatre below him, and con- 
 sequently saw nothing of his enemies, whose footsteps were 
 drowned by the roar of the fall, while the taint of their 
 presence was swept away from him by the rush of cool air 
 from the water. 
 
 " Hist ! hist !" whispered the hunter in low tones. 
 
 " Now, Frank,'' said Archer in his ear, and with an eye 
 glistening with excitement, he raised the light Manton rifle 
 to his eye, took a quick aim, and drew the trigger. 
 
 Simultaneously with the crack and flash of the piece, the 
 noble animal made a quick involuntary plunge, and the soft 
 thud of the ball, as it struck him, reached the ears of the 
 sportsmen. 
 
 He turned his soft liquid eyes towards his foemen, with 
 a hoarse, plaintive bleat, and gathered his slender sinewy 
 limbs to spring across the channel of the fall ; but ere he 
 had time to rise, Harry's unerring weapon flashed, for he 
 saw that, although Frank's ball had taken effect, the wound 
 was not mortal. 
 
 The heavy ounce ball clove his heart asunder, and in the 
 very act of leaping, he fell dead upon the very summit of 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 179 
 
 the cataract, nnd the next instant was swept down by the 
 tumultuous waters to the very feet of his conquerors. 
 
 The sharp crack of the rifle-shots, in that deep rock- 
 bound chasm, bellowed almost like the roar of ordnance, 
 and soaring upward were repeated by the mountain tops, 
 each after each, till they died away in the far distance, but 
 not till they had reached the ears of a man who stood on 
 the lower ridges of the same chain of hills at about one 
 mile's distance eastward of the Eagle Rock. 
 
 It was no other than Ned Wheeler, who, notwithstand- 
 ino^ his assertion that he was about to beat the level ground 
 along the base of the hills, had ascended the slope at once, 
 and, having wandered so far as to the first terrace of the 
 mountain, was leaning on his rifle and listening eagerly for 
 some sound which should indicate to him the whereabout 
 of the party, which — strange to say — he held in deadly 
 apprehension. 
 
 A fierce smile illuminated his villanous features with a 
 sinister light, as he heard the often re-echoed shots, and he 
 muttered between his teeth, "Ah ! that will do, that will do ! 
 They have shot a deer in the Devil's Hollow ! Now, they 
 will bear off" to the left. What fools them darned gentle- 
 men, as they calls themselves, be ! They're far enough now, 
 anyways ; and I mifst hurry, or I'll sca'ce be in time." 
 
 And with the words he threw his rifle to the trail, and, 
 hurrying up the mountain side, made the best of his way 
 toward the Eagle Rock. 
 
 Meanwhile our party also, having gralloched the hart 
 which they had slain,and hoisted him up into the branches of 
 a tall hemlock which shot out of a crevice at the foot of the 
 fall, set themselves to climb the rocky path by the cata- 
 ract's edge, and soon gaining the three terraces mentioned 
 by Dolph, took each his own line, Harry following the top- 
 most, which, as Pierson informed him, would lead him 
 direct to the often-mentioned rock, Dolph taking the next 
 below hiin, and Forester pursuing the lowest. 
 ^ Those terraces were in fact irregular slopes on the hill 
 side, comparatively level, but still descending at a consi- 
 derable angle to the southward, each bounded by a sheer 
 step or cliff of shaly limestone rock, varying from ten to 
 fifty feet in height, below which lav the next in succession. 
 
180 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 These slopes were in some places two hundred yards in 
 width, in some less than fifty, but all three were covered 
 with a dense growth ot" gigantic fern, interspersed here with 
 swales of soft rich green grass, and there with patches of 
 winteroreen and cranberries, or with thickets of calmia, 
 rhododendron, and azalia. Overhead they were canopied 
 by the many-coloured foliage of the huge forest trees, and 
 above the topmost terrace, to Archer's left hand, as he was 
 wending his way eastward, the mountain rose abrupt, steep, 
 and stony, and clothed for the most part with a dense 
 growth of evergreens. 
 
 Along these terraces they made their way slowly, com- 
 municating from time to time one with the other, so as to 
 keep all in accurate line, watching every brake, surveying 
 the bark of every gray trunk against which the wild deer 
 mio-ht have frayed their antlers, gathering tokens from 
 every turned leaf, whether the wild cattle of the hills had 
 passed in their direction — but in vain. No sign met their 
 eyes ; and they had traversed half the distance to the rock, 
 when the sharp crack of a rifle was heard in the woods 
 ahead of them. 
 
 " Hist ! Dolph !" cried Harry, springing to the verge of 
 the terrace, " where was that shot fired f 
 
 " Within two rod of the Eagle Rock, or my ears beant 
 what they used to be." 
 
 " It must be Harry Barhvte?" 
 
 "Likely." 
 
 " Let's on. I want to speak wdth him." 
 
 Onward they went then, quickening their pace a little, 
 and neglecting many of those precautions, which they had 
 previously taken to discover the game of which they were 
 in pursuit ; for, though he said little, it was evident that there 
 was something on Archer's mind that day far different from 
 the mere killing of red deer, and that he had resolved on 
 some course with regard to Barhyte, whom he regarded as 
 the saviour of his life. 
 
 Before they reached the Eagle Rock, however, while they 
 were all walking each on his own line at the rate of perhaps 
 three miles and'a half an hour, a brace of fine does bounced 
 suddenly out of the long fern, scarce thirty yards ahead 
 of Archer, and bounded across his face down the mountain 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 181 
 
 side. With the speed of light he tossed the heavy rifle to his 
 shoulder, shouting as he did so, " Mark deer ! Dolph, 
 ma-ark !" and his shout was followed by the quick-succeed- 
 ing crack. of both his barrels, fired one after the other. 
 
 The first doe sprang six feet into the air, and fell dead 
 before she had made six bounds from the brake whence she 
 had started, but the second had crossed the little terrace 
 and was springing down the crag, at that place not above 
 ten feet in descent, when he fired, so that he overshot her. 
 
 " Now, Dolph !" he shouted, " it's your turn ; give it her, 
 old fellow !" 
 
 But instead of the report of the rifle, the sharp explosion 
 of a cap alone was heard, followed by a stifled execration, 
 and then, 
 
 " Hilloh ! Look out. Forester." 
 
 A shot followed, and a loud whoop from that worthy, 
 who had at length pinned a deer, after two day's hard 
 walking. 
 
 " Look here, Dolph," cried Archer, as he looked down 
 upon the hunter, who was coolly recapping his gun. " I 
 wish you'd come up and bleed this doe for me, and tnen 
 follow me as quickly as you can ; I'm afraid I shall miss 
 Barhyte." 
 
 " All right, Aircher," answered the old hunter, looking 
 up earnestly in the young man's face ; " I'd like you to see 
 him. For it's fit he should know, and you'll tell him stret 
 and easily at oncet." 
 
 Harry nodded gravely, and hurried on, loading his rifle 
 as he went ; and scarcely had he done so, before the gray 
 rifled precipice with a table rock on the summit, and a 
 small glade of smooth grassy land at its base, below which 
 grew on the declivity of the mountain a dense grove of giant 
 pines, rose full in view before him. 
 
 He had never been on the spot before, yet was there no 
 possibility of mistaking it. For, if the scene had not spoken 
 for itself, there on the summit of a tall white-oak which 
 shot a hundred feet heavenward above the hoary rock, was 
 the immemorial nest of the bald-headed eagle. 
 
 Archer looked around him eagerly, as if he had hop' 1 
 to find some one at that very place, so strongly had his 
 imaojination acted on him. But, seeing- nothinq- like a hu- 
 
182 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 man form, he half smiled at his own credulity, and, bending 
 his eyes downward, began to search for the track of the 
 man he souo;ht, on the moist soil of the little mountain 
 meadow. 
 
 He had not taken twenty paces, however, before he 
 started back, as pale as death, in ghastly horror. 
 
 For there, directly in front of the Eagle rock, flat on his 
 back, with his grim unshaven face, and wide staring eyes, 
 and a small gory spot in the centre of his forehead, all 
 turned heavenward, rigid and cold as the earth on which 
 he lay, was the man whom he sought — Harry Barhyte. 
 
 So awful and appalling was the intonation of the shout 
 which burst from Archer's lips at this discovery, that Fo- 
 rester and Dolph Pierson were convinced, as it struck their 
 ears, that something fearful had occurred; and, leaving the 
 deer unbroken, they came rushing up at full speed, Frank 
 leading in the race, breathless and blown, and found their 
 comrade pale as the corpse itself, yet noting all the circum- 
 stances with the precision and self-composure of a calm 
 brave man. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 WOODCRAFT AND EVIDENCE. 
 
 The body lay, as I have said, flat on its back, with the 
 head down hill, and the feet toward the gray crag above. 
 The left hand was firmly clinched, but the right was wide 
 open. It was evident, in an instant, that the fatal shot had 
 slain him outright, for not a blade of grass was disturbed 
 around him ; he lay, as he had fallen, as he had died, un» 
 convulsed, and without a struggle. 
 
 He must have been standing, therefore, with his face to- 
 ward the rock, when the shot took effect which slew him. 
 
 When Forester and Pierson came up, Harry was stand- 
 ing close to the corpse with a small note-book and a pencil 
 in his hand ; five minutes' had perhaps elapsed since he 
 uttered that wild shout, and neither of the new-comers were 
 aware that he had stirred from the spot. 
 
 *' Good God !" exclaimed Forester, " who is this '^ ' 
 
 " Harry Barhyte !" cried Dolph, " sure's my name's 
 Pierson. Well — well ! my dream's out !" 
 
 " Have a care," cried Archer, sharply, as Frank began 
 to move restlessly about. " Don't stir^^f step. This ground 
 has got to be searched, step by step." 
 
 The hunter, who had just picked up a long rifle wuich 
 lay on the grass beside the body, and was examining it with 
 a jealous eye, looked quickly up to Archer's face, as if to 
 catch his meaning. But all there was blank and inscrutable. 
 
 Again he looked to the rifle, the hammer of which was 
 down on the nipple, with the cap recently exploded ; drew 
 the ramrod, tried the barrel, and finding it discharged, 
 
 119 163 
 
194 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 shook his head, saying : " No, no, Aircher, 'tain't no use 
 sarching; he's done it his own self. God send it was by 
 accident, but I doubt it, sorely. '^ 
 
 " He did it not himself, Dolph Pierson," replied Archer, 
 solemnly, "either by accident or intent." 
 
 "It's his own rifle — fresh fired, Aircher — there hain't 
 ben but orie shot fired since we came on the range, and 
 that's two hours, if it's a minnit, except those we fired. The 
 poor lad's warm vet. Sure as death the shot we heard did 
 the deed !" 
 
 " True, every syllable," said Archer ; " yet he did it not 
 — that is certain," and as he spoke, he closed the book, in 
 which he had made several memoranda, and returned it to 
 his pocket. 
 
 " Are you in earnest, Harry ?" asked Forester, all whose 
 mercurial spirits and quick Hie had passed from him at 
 that dread sight. 
 
 "In earnest I" exclaimed Archer, half indignant at the 
 question ; " in most solemn and dread earnest !" 
 
 " He must be right, then," muttered the old hunter ; " but 
 I can't see into it, nohow." 
 
 " See now, then," said the other, solemnly — " and see 
 you, Frank, and what you see, that nctte, for it is evidence, 
 and on it hangs another life /" 
 
 " Look here!" and he pointed to the hole by which the 
 bullet had entered, nearly in the centre of the forehead, but 
 a little to the right, about half an inch above the inner cor- 
 ner of the right eyebrow. 
 
 " Well." 
 
 " And then here /" and, as he spoke, he kneeled down 
 and raised the head gently by the hair — the cap had fallen 
 off — and laid his fi^iger on the spot, just above the roots of 
 the hair at the nape of the neck, where, after passing 
 through the brain, it had issued. 
 
 " I don't see," said Frank, musing. 
 
 " Bu\ I do," said Pierson, after a moment, during which 
 he had bowed his own head over the muzzle of his own 
 rifle, which he placed in several different directions, wilh 
 the butt on the ground. " He did 7Wt shoot hisself." 
 
 " Why not V' 
 
 " If he had done so, with that rifle, the ball must have 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 1S5 
 
 come out of the back of his head at a point liigher than that 
 at which it entered. It has come out two inches lower." 
 
 " True, if it were accidental — but if intentional, might 
 not he have held the piece, from above, at arm's length ?" 
 
 " Impossible ! It is a four-foot barrel — no earthly arm 
 could have done it. What do you say, Dolph ?" 
 
 " What you says. He didn't shoot hisself, neither acci- 
 dental, nor a purpose; and I thank God for't !" 
 
 " Amen !" replied Harry. " Now, look there !" and he 
 pointed to a freshly-cut v.hite spot on the trunk of one of 
 the great pine trees, at about three feet from the ground, 
 directly in the rear of the corpse ; " there is the bullet !" 
 
 Two minutes had not passed before the woodman had 
 dug the fatal ball out of the soft bark of the pine-tree 
 with the point of his knife. 
 
 " It's Barhvte's own bullet, too, Aircher," said the hunter, 
 examining the deadly missile ; " here's his own mark on't." 
 
 " The deeper and more damnable the craft of the mur- 
 derer !" said Harry. 
 
 " The murderer I" repeated Forester. 
 
 " Av ! the murderer !" repeated Archer. " Now, kneel 
 down, Dolph, lay your eye to the level of that shot-hole in 
 the tree, and take your range past the collar of my coat, 
 as I stand at poor Barhyte's feet. I am a trifle taller than 
 he, but that's near enough. Now, old man, where does 
 your line strike] where was he shot from?" 
 
 The old hunter rose from his knees and gazed for a mo- 
 ment wonderingly in the face of the young man. 
 
 "You're a merickle, you be) You knows iverything, 
 vou do ! Pve said it, often ; but I sees it now. Harry 
 Barhyte was shot by some one who stood at top o' the 
 Eagle rock, alongside the trunk of the tree with the knob 
 on'L" 
 
 " x\re you sure of that ?" asked Archer, gravely. 
 
 " As sure as that's the sun yonder !" 
 
 While this colloquy was going on, Frank knelt and 
 took the same eve-line, and saw that in effect the range 
 
 ^ ^ CD 
 
 was true from the point where the bullet had cut the tree, 
 through the elevation of a tall man's head to a level about 
 five feet above the table-rock, close to the bodv of the white. 
 
186 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 oak tree ; and marvelling greatly at the strange sagacity 
 ui' his comrades, he kept his peace and listened. 
 
 " Would you swear it?" 
 
 The hunter paused. " I would !" he said, at last. 
 
 " Yet that is his own gun, and it was his own bullet that 
 killed him." 
 
 " Some one must have changed guns with him." 
 
 " When, Pierson?" 
 
 A light seemed to flash on the old man, for his eye kin- 
 dled, and he smote his hand upon his thigh. 
 
 " Twice !" he replied ; " oncet afore he was shot, and 
 acrain arterward. We'll be on the trail of him afore ten 
 minutes. Ned Wheeler, you shall swung for this !" 
 
 "You have hit my very thought, Pierson," said Archer. 
 " He must have come down from the rock after doing it — 
 vet I can find no track of him." 
 
 " Let's try again," said the old man ; and to v/ork they 
 went, and searched the ground almost foot by foot, but no 
 track could they find, except their own prints coming from 
 the westward, and those of the murdered man from the east. 
 
 " This is very strange," said Harry. But at that very 
 moment Frank pointed to a piece of flat flag-stone, which 
 he had been contemplating closely for above a minute — it 
 lay about a yard distant from the dead man. And lo ! upon 
 its dry surface, visible enough, was the "sable score," not 
 of fino-ers four, but of five naked human toes, which had 
 left the print thereon of the dark peaty soil on which they 
 had last trodden. 
 
 " Right, Frank !" cried Archer, exultingly. "We will 
 have him now ; and you will make a woodman !" 
 
 The clue once taken was followed easily ; a large piece 
 of loose half-decayed pine bark lay on the ground at about 
 four feet from the flag-stone ; it was lifted, and beneath it 
 were two distinct impressions in the deep loam of a naked 
 human foot, one coming, one returning. Other indications 
 were discovered, though less distinct than these, which 
 made it perfectly clear that since the death of poor Barhyte 
 a man had come from the Eagle Rock, and returned to it, 
 barefooted ; concealing, moreover, the evidence of his visit 
 hy strange, Indian-like expedients. 
 
 Harrv a"-ain drew out his note-book, and showed to his 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 1^7 
 
 companions a rude map which he had already made of the 
 localities, with the exact positions of the rock, the body, and 
 the trees, and thereupon he now inserted the places of the 
 marked stones and foot-prints. 
 
 Forester and the hunter examined and verified it, and 
 then affixed, the former his signature, and the latter his mark. 
 
 " Now, Dolph," said Archer, quietly ; " you and I know 
 who the murderer is ; but we have got one thing to do yet — 
 to prove it ! and to that end you and I must take him, and 
 that to-day r"* 
 
 " We can do't, Aircher I" 
 
 " And you must help us, Frank." 
 
 " Of course, Harry, to the utmost — but I do not know 
 how I can, for it seems to me, as Dolph says, that you do 
 know, or at least see everything. How can I help you ?" 
 
 " Do you think you can fitid your way to Timothy, and 
 the wagon V 
 
 "I am not sure. I'll try though." 
 
 " Look ye here, Mister Forester," said Dolph, leading 
 him forward to the brow of the hill, and pointing out to him 
 a towering bare crag across the valley, " keep your line 
 stret to that 'ere, and it'll bring you out at the fork of the 
 road, where Tim's waitin'." 
 
 " Have you got your pocket compass, Harry ?" 
 
 " Here it is." 
 
 " I'll set the line, and then ail's certain. Now, then, 
 what am I to do ?" 
 
 " Go, and find Timothy first; then follow the road half 
 a mile, and you'll come to a country store. Get help 
 there — buy a ladle, and a {q\\ pounds of lead — come hither 
 — melt the lead, take a cast of those two^ footprints, which 
 I have covered over again. Then take them, and the body 
 and the rifle, dosvn to the store, and wait until we come to 
 you. Use my name and Dolph's, and do not let them hold 
 an inquest until we come up." 
 
 " Let me look at the rifle first." 
 
 "Certainly; what of it?" 
 
 " I think I have seen it before." 
 
 "Indeed ! when?" 
 
 " This morning." 
 
 " Ay !" replied Harry, catching his meaning on tha 
 
188 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 instant — " that was but a passing glance. You cannot be 
 certain." 
 
 " I may be made so." 
 
 " W^ell ! time will show, and we have no time to lose, 
 not a moment. This deed had not been done twenty min- 
 utes when I got here, for I heard the shot which did it, and 
 the assassin may well have been within earshot when we 
 reached the ground ; he could not have been many hundred 
 yards distant, for all these stratagems must have taken 
 time. Now, if he have heard us, he will be desperate, and 
 may lie in wait for you, or try to intercept you. If he do, 
 shoot him like a dog, and I'll bear you out." 
 
 " I have got two barrels here, and a good stout knife 
 too," answered Forester, " and if I had none of them, 
 barehanded I would not fear a cold-blooded murderer — he 
 must be a coward." 
 
 " But a cornered coward is a dangerous thin";." 
 
 " Be it so. I am on my guard. Fare you well." And 
 he set off at a round trot down the hill, in the direction 
 indicated, and was soon lost to view among the thick trees 
 on the hill-side. 
 
 There was a momentary silence, which was broken, at 
 length, by the hunter inquiring in a low voice, 
 
 " What next, Aircher?" 
 
 " To hunt him by the foot-track till we find him." 
 
 « And then ?— " 
 
 " If we can follow him by the foot, I'll arrest him on my 
 own authority." 
 
 " And I'll back you. Come." 
 
 And leaving the fatal spot, the^^ ascended the Eagle Rock, 
 where, on searching the circumference of the flat table of 
 stone where it was surrounded by soft grassy soil, they 
 easily found the track of a man's foot coming up to it from 
 the eastward. 
 
 " Run down, Dolph, and measure the dead man's shoe, 
 length and brcadili, mark it with nicks on your ramrod — 
 be quick." 
 
 This was done in the space of two or three minutes, and, 
 as was expected, the tracks were found to be different — 
 shorter and broader — they too were measured and marked. 
 
 Some minutes were spent, thereafter, but the pursuers of 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 189 
 
 blood coLiLl not discover any track leaving the rock, till, at 
 length, remembering the trick practised below, Archer 
 turned over a flat stone which lay on the soft mire of the 
 swaly ground, and there was the stamp of a booted foot — 
 the same boot. 
 
 " He's ben larned this by the Injuns in Floridy," said 
 Dolph. 
 
 " Doubtless !" replied Archer. " But this must have 
 taken him many minutes. He cannot be far before us. 
 Ha ! here's a Ibot-print not covered ; he has thought himself 
 safe here. But I cannoi see another." 
 
 " He's tuk up the bed of the little stream !" cried the old 
 hunter, delighted at finding himself able to add his quota to 
 the discovery of the criminal ; " and what's more, he's 
 travellin' up it still — see how muddy the water comes 
 down, and there hain't ben a drop o' rain to rile it these 
 three days." 
 
 " Forward, then !" exclaimed Harry. " We have nothing 
 to do, but to follow it along till it gets clear again. .We 
 have him now." 
 
 And away they dashed as hard as they could run, fol- 
 lowing the banks of the brook, which came down muddier 
 and more muddy, the higher they traced it toward the source 
 — they were gaining upon their man. 
 
 But ere they came to clear water, they met him unex- 
 pectedly coming to meet them, face to face. He had heard 
 them, doubtless, as they crashed through the brake and 
 underwood ; and, seeing the daugf^r of being detected flying, 
 had resolved to brazen it out. 
 
 As they surmised, it was Ned Wlieeler. Guiltier than 
 usual he could not look, for the assassin and the dastard 
 were ineradically branded on his vile features by the hand 
 of nature, 
 
 " You run hard to-day, my men," he said, sneeringly. 
 "What are you chasing, anyhow?" 
 
 "Ned Wheeler, you /" said Archer, steadily, halting 
 within six feet of him. 
 
 " vl!hasing ^/?c/" said the ruffian. " You'll find that tough 
 work, I guess." And he cocked his rifle. 
 
 " Edward Whrr-elcr," I'Ppeated Archer, " you are my 
 prisoner. 1 arrest you, for the murder of Henry Barhyte,** 
 
190 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 The wretch turned pale as death, but still he raised his 
 rifle to the shoulder, and levelling it full at Archer's head, 
 cried, in a hoarse voice— 
 
 " Stand off, or by J — s you're a dead man !' 
 
 At the same instant Pierson levelled his piece too, ex- 
 claiming, " Down with your gun, Ned, down with it, or I 
 fire !" 
 
 The coward's eye wandered from Archer to the new 
 speaker, and as Harry's quick glance perceived that he 
 wavered, he leaped in atone bound, and mastering his rifle, 
 which went off harmlessly in the scuffle, with his left hand, 
 caught him by the throat with his right, and tripping him 
 at the same time with his foot, cast him heavily to the 
 ground. The next moment he was disarmed, and his hands 
 were securely fastened behind him. 
 
 " It only remains, now, Dolph," said Harry Archer, " to 
 lake his back track to the place where he left the brook, 
 and then we have the whole clue made good." 
 
 " We'll do't," said Dolph. " Come, Wheeler, you mnst 
 go along with us ; so you'd as well go easy." 
 
 " You'll live to be sorry for this," said the wretch, dog- 
 gedly ; but he shuddered as he spoke the words, for he 
 perceived the ability and perseverance with which he had 
 been pursued, though he could not conceive how he had 
 been taken. 
 
 The rest was easy work. The track was clear in the 
 deep mud of the swamp, and within twenty paces it led 
 them to the banks of the little stream, which had already 
 subsided into almost its natural clearness. 
 
 *' Now, Wheeler," said Archer, gravely, " It seems a 
 cruel thing to do — but we have no choice or help for it — 
 we must take you down to the place where the body lies, 
 and detain you there until assistance arrives to remove you 
 and it." 
 
 " Don't he olnrmed for nuthen'," answered the callous 
 wretch ; " I'd jest as lieves set by Harry Barhyte's body 
 as anywheres else 1 Ef he be dead I didn't shoot him ; my 
 gun hain't ben shot off to-day ; you can try it, ef you like, 
 f'il make you pay for this, I tell you !" 
 
 " Wheeler," said Archer, yet more solemnly than be- 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 191 
 
 fore, "beware! I tell you, you are committing yourself. 
 Who said anything about shooting? or how know you that 
 Barhyte was shot '? I warn you. I was Barhyte's friend, 
 and I will be his avenger. I know you to be guilty, and I 
 will pursue you to the utmost; but no advantage shall be 
 taken of you. If you would take your only chance of 
 saving your neck, do not say one word, or answer any 
 question, until you have got a lawyer. Now, come on." 
 
 And without farrher words they led him back by the 
 very way along which they had followed him. They pointed 
 out his foot-prints to him, one by one, uncovering those 
 which he had concealed, and replacing the stones and bark 
 as before, and then they set him face to face with the dead 
 body. 
 
 That was a fearful trial, but the wretch bore it with a 
 dogo^ed hardihood, that in a good caus^ would have been 
 noble resolution. His features worked a little, but he gazed 
 fixedly on the face of the dead, and then said in a quiet, 
 sullen voice, 
 
 " Ay ! he is dead, but I did not kill him !" 
 
 " We shall see," replied Archer, and leading away their 
 prisoner to the foot of the rock, and making him sit down, 
 they sat down themselves beside him, and patiently awaited 
 the return of Forester with aid. 
 
 Within an hour — so eagerly had Forester bestirred him- 
 self, and such was the excitement created by the dreadful 
 tidings, in that peacetlil neighbourhood — voices were heard 
 coming up the hill, and a few minutes afterward. Forester 
 appeared on the ground, followed by Timothy, carrying the 
 ladle and the lead, and half a dozen decent-looking farmers 
 and countrymen. 
 
 " Where is the body, sir?" said one of these, stepping 
 a little forward, with a small air of authority — it was the 
 coroner of the county, who was accidentally present in the 
 store when Forester entered, and had accompanied. 
 
 " There, sir," said Archer, rising from the place where 
 he was sitting — " There, sir, is the body of the murdered 
 man, and here is the murderer !" 
 
 No one had noticed the little group at the foot of the rock 
 
192 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 till he spoke, all eyes being turned in the opposite direction, 
 and his words made quite a commotion. 
 
 "And pray, who are you, sir1" asked the coroner. 
 
 " I am Henry Archer, at present of New York — the per- 
 son who discovered the body, and vvho have taken the mur- 
 derer, whom I now deliver into your custody." 
 
 " On what authority, or evidence did you arrest him ?" 
 
 " On the authority which rests in every citizen to arrest 
 1 felon taken in the fact, and on the evidence which I shall 
 show you." 
 
 And in a few words he recounted the facts as they oc- 
 curred, pointed out the mute evidence given by the direction 
 of the shot, and the naked foot-prints coming and returning 
 irom the rock, and then led the officer over the whole 
 ground, to the place where the prisoner was taken. 
 
 " It is all clear enough, sir. It is all as clear as day," said 
 the coroner, " I can see that myself now that you point it 
 out. But it is all owing to you. Had any one of us found 
 that body, had any one man, I am bold to say, out of five 
 thousand, found it, he would have taken it for granted Bar- 
 hyte had killed himself, and the only question would have 
 been accidental death, or feh de se^ and I fancy it would 
 have been the latter. And then the murderer would have 
 gone clear, and the murdered man been murdered doubly, 
 in his reputation as well as in his body. Pray, sir, are 
 you a lawyer ?" 
 
 " No, I am not, sir," replied Archer, with a smile. 
 
 " No, he ain't," said old Dolph, " but he's a darned sight 
 better thino;, he's the verv best and 'cutest woodman I iver 
 did see." 
 
 " To what, prav, do you attribute your own very singu 
 lar acuteness in this matter, sir?" persisted the coroner, 
 paying no heed to Dolph, but looking very eagerly at 
 Archer. " I never heard of anything like it in all my 
 life ?" 
 
 " I am not conscious of anything so very particular about 
 the matter, but if there be anything, I can only attribute it 
 to a habit of observing closely, and, as my friend here says, 
 
 to the NOELE SCIENCE OF WoODCRAFT !" 
 
 ' It is very strange !" said the coroner ; then turning to 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 193 
 
 Wheeler, who was in charge of a constable, " Now, prisoner, 
 we must look to this. Observe, you need answer no ques- 
 tions unless you choose it. Constable, take off the boot of 
 his right foot." 
 
 It was done, and lo ! the foot was black with the very 
 hue of the mire around. 
 
 " Set his right foot in that foot-print !" 
 
 The prisoner turned as pale as ashes, when this mandate 
 was given, and struggled impotently to resist, but it was all 
 in vain. Point for point the naked foot fitted the naked 
 foot -print. 
 
 " Now take his boot up above the rock, two or three of 
 you, and try that. We will have all clear." 
 
 This too was done, and in a few minutes three or four 
 witnesses returned, all ready to swear to the perfect coin- 
 cidence. 
 
 " I think this is enough, sir," said the coroner, turning 
 to Archer, " although your suggestion of the lead is an 
 admirable one, wherever foot-tracks, either of men or 
 beasts, are to be brought in evidence." 
 
 " Quite enough, sir," replied Archer. " I only intended 
 using it, in case of not taking the prisoner on the spot. 
 This actual comparison before witnesses is of course better, 
 because positive." 
 
 " Tain't no use, none of it !" muttered the prisoner, dog- 
 gedly. " It's his own rifle that he's shot with ; there it lies 
 now, alongside of him. Tain't likely, I could a' shot the 
 man with his own gun !" 
 
 The bystanders stared a little at this speech : and one 
 of them, taking up the rifle, said, " 'Tis Harry Barhyte's 
 rifle, sartin !" 
 
 But just then Forester advanced, and asked to see 
 Wheeler's piece. It was given to him, and, after a single 
 glance at it, he said, 
 
 " We passed Whev-ler on the road this morning; he was 
 carrying his rifle at a trnil in his right hand, and the outer 
 side was toward me. I will swea'r that it was not this 
 rifle which he carried thon ; whether this be his own or no." 
 
 " It is his own," cri(?d two or three voices from the 
 crowd. 
 
194 Tin: Di-;i h.-:Taj.i::;ks. 
 
 " How can you swear to that, Mr. Forester? You could 
 have had but a very cursory view of it." 
 
 " The rifle he carried had a brass-lidded patch-hox in 
 the stock — this, which is said to be his, has none." 
 • " And Henry Barhyte's?" asked the officer. 
 
 '■'■Has a brass patch-box !" answered the man who held it. 
 
 " Take him away, constable, take him away ; and some 
 of you make a hand-barrow of some of these branches — you 
 have got an axe or two, I see, among you — and bring the 
 body down, will you not ? To Dutch Jake's, you know, 
 that's the nearest public house ; the prisoner and the body 
 both. You will attend there, gentlemen ; we shall want 
 your evidence." 
 
 " We are staying there for the present," answered 
 Archer. " My wagon and horses are at the foot of the 
 hill ; I can offer you a seat, if you will accept one." 
 
 "I thank you, much, sir. Shall not I crowd you?" 
 
 " By no means. 1 will leave my servant." 
 
 "No, Aircher, best leave me," interposed Dolph. "I 
 must break up them ere does, and hyst them into the trees 
 till mornin' ; the wolves'll git 'em else. And I'll bring 
 down a saddle with me. Don't be feared, coroner, I'll be 
 thar afore you've got your jury sot." 
 
 " There is nothing to detain us any longer, is there V 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Let us go then." 
 
 A few minutes' walk brought them to the carriage, and 
 driving rapidly down the road, they soon reached Barhyte's 
 cottage. Here Harry pulled up, and giving the reins to 
 Forester, apologised to the coroner, who was a lawyer of 
 good standing in the county town, for detaining him a few 
 seconds, and entered the house, closing the door carefully 
 after him. 
 
 The most fearful suspicions were at work in his mind, 
 whether this woman, evidently in minor matters guilty, 
 were not in this last damning crime an accomplice like- 
 wise ; and, between his friendship for Barhyte, his resolve 
 TO prosecute the matter to the utmost, his reluctance to in- 
 jure a woman, and some remains of lurking tenderness to 
 the young creature whom he had so often fondled when a 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 195 
 
 child, Ins mind was in a terrible state of anxiety an 1 
 turmoil. 
 
 The beautiful young woman, who was now very becom- 
 ingly and very coquettishly attired, evidently in expectation 
 of this visit, had heard the wheels, and was coming to the 
 door to meet him, when he entered. 
 
 There was a bright flashing glance in her blue eye, and 
 a smile of wanton invitation on her lip, as she addressed 
 her visiter. 
 
 " Henry has not come home, Mr. Archer," she said. 
 " But you need not mind that, you can sit down, and talk 
 over old times with me till he returns." 
 
 And she put out her small white hand to lead him to a 
 chair, as she spoke. 
 
 But he took it not, nor advanced, but stood still, and 
 gazed at her fixedly. 
 
 " No, Mrs. Barhyte," he said in a slow solemn voice. 
 " Henry has not come home, and what is more, he never 
 will come home again." 
 
 She looked surprised for a moment, and then tossing her 
 head saucily, " It is no great loss," she said. " He has 
 run away, I suppose, Mr. Archer. He has been a lost 
 man these nine months past." 
 
 " No, madam, he is dead." 
 
 She gazed at him for a moment, and then bursting into 
 a sort of hysterical laugh — " Dead !" she cried ; " Oh ! you 
 are joking with me ; dead drunk ! you mean." 
 
 " Indeed, I do not. He is dead ! Shot dead, through 
 the brain, /found him." 
 
 " Good God !" she exclaimed, turning ashy pale, and 
 glaring at him, as if her eyes would have started from their 
 sockets — " Good God ! How terrible !" and then sinkinoj 
 her voice into a whisper, she added, " Who shot him V 
 
 " It was supposed," he replied, " that he shot himself. 
 We were but a short way off, when the gun was fired — 
 there was but one — and when we found him, he was lying 
 on his back quite dead, with his own gun, just discharged, 
 beside him." 
 
 " His oifii gun !" she shrieked ; " his oivn gun ! Oh ! 
 villain, villain, villain ! Can it be, that after all, you have 
 done this thing?" 
 
196 THE DEERSTALKEUS. 
 
 " It can, indeed ! nay, it ?'s, Mary. He is a prisoner, T 
 look him, redhanded, in the fact ; there is evidence enough 
 to hang twenty men ; and he- shall hang, or my name is 
 not Henry Archer. But 1 thank God, Mary, that you nro 
 innocent, at least, of this." 
 
 " Oi this — of this — you did not believe, Archer, that I — 
 I — was a murderess?" 
 
 " I feared it, Mary." 
 
 "My God! my God ! to what have I fallen! What 
 have I done? how am I humbled?" She buried her face 
 in her hands, and for several minutes wept bitterly. At 
 length, and as it would seem by a great effort, mustering 
 courage, she raised her eyes to his, now melancholy and 
 subdued, and cried in a plaintive tone — 
 
 "Oh! you are good — j^ou are good, Henry Archer. Tell 
 me, tell me, what must I do?" she paused ; and then, an old 
 recollection of innocent and happy days breaking upon her, 
 she added, " What shall I do to be saved ?" 
 
 " Repent !" the young man answered solemnly. " Repent, 
 and be forgiven." 
 
 " I will, I will," cried the beautiful sinner ; " God help 
 me, I will!" 
 
 " God v:ill help you !" replied Archer. " Now, tell me, 
 what know you of this awful business?" 
 
 "i/e — you know whom I mean, I will never name his 
 name again — pretended to be drunk last night, and carried 
 away Barhyte's rifle, and left his own in place of it. So, 
 Harry went out early, before lie came — of course he was 
 late on purpose — and took his gun to hunt. Oh ! my God, 
 it will kill me to think of it. — Harry ! poor, poor, dear 
 Harry ! how he loved me, and I — I — oh ! what will become 
 of me !" and again she burst into a bitter paroxysm of tears. 
 
 " I must leave you now, Mary," said Archer, kindly. 
 " Heaven keep you in j'our good resolves. I will return, 
 when they bring him home. Shall I" — he hesitated for a 
 moment — " shall I bring a clergyman with me ?" 
 
 " Yes !" she cried, clasping her hands together eagerly, 
 " Oh, yes — God bless you for the thought, I will confess, 
 and be good, if I can, hereafter. Oh ! Heaven bless you, 
 Mr. Archer!" 
 
THE DEERSTALKERS. 197 
 
 * Good-night, Mary ;" and with the words he left the 
 room, and, mounting his driving-seat, took the reins, and 
 drove rapidly to tlie tavern, whither hot rumour had pre- 
 ceded them already, and where the fat man awaited them, 
 half crazy between excitement and anxiety. 
 
 M'hat need of many words ? 
 
 If there were any, the excitement of my tale is ended. 
 The conclusion must be anticipated. 
 
 The coroner's inquest was held, and a verdict of wilful 
 murder was returned instantly against Edward Wheeler ; 
 but the miserable wretch spared this world any farther 
 trouble with his concerns, or his crimes ; for he contrived, 
 that night, to anticipate his doom, hanging himself by his 
 neckcloth from a ciothes'-pin, on the wall of the room in 
 which he was confined, previous to his removal to the 
 county gaol. 
 
 So resolute was he, even to the last, that, the peg from 
 which he was suspended being scarce six feet from tlie 
 ground, he fell on his knees, and so strangled himself, till 
 life was extinct. He died aiid made no sitjn. 
 
 Mary Barhyte did indeed repent, and gave proof of re- 
 pentance in an amended and secluded life; but she lived not 
 long, dying of what was called consumption, which is so 
 often but another name for a grieved and broken heart. 
 
 And, after she was gone, some palliation for her sin was 
 discovered in the fact, that she had loved, and would have 
 married Wheeler, when both were young and innocent, but 
 for her parents' opposition. She believed him dead when 
 she wedded Barhyte. The first lover returned — He was 
 wicked, she weak ; he tempted, and she fell. 
 
 Judge not, that ye be not judged ! 
 
 Archer and Forester returned home, for the time, much 
 saddened and subdued ; and even Fat Tom neither swore 
 nor jested, on the homeward route. 
 
 In process of time, however, the dark shadow left on 
 their minds by these terrible events passed away, and left 
 them, as of old, light-hearted, joyous, and carefree ; and 
 perhaps both felt somewhat raised in their own opinion, by 
 the feeling that, in circumstances requiring great exertion, 
 
198 THE DEERSTALKERS. 
 
 both of physical and moral courage, they had done their 
 duty. 
 
 Harry Archer loved not to speak of this subject afterward; 
 but whenever he did so, he was wont to cite it as a proof, 
 that there is not only much practical, but much moral 
 utility, in the Gentle Science of Woodcraft. 
 
 THE EN P. 
 
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 raSK PROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
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 on the dateto whivt ''""P^'' beW, or 
 Renewed boots are nbtJct^'J' 
 
 ject to immediate recali. 
 
 (L1795sl0)476B 
 
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