ll ye, Mister, down 't this end
o' the pond?" he said, pointing away from the deer tracks. "If ye see
ary one, send out word, and I'll come and fetch 'im.--Needn't foller
the tracks though; they wander like all possessed this time o' year," he
added earnestly as he went away.

That afternoon I went over to a little pond, a mile distant from my
camp, and deeper in the woods. The shore was well cut up with numerous
deer tracks, and among the lily pads everywhere were signs of recent
feeding. There was a man's track here too, which came cautiously out
from a thick point of woods, and spied about on the shore, and went
back again more cautiously than before. I took the measure of it back to
camp, and found that it corresponded perfectly with the boot tracks
of Old Wally. There were a few deer here, undoubtedly, which he was
watching jealously for his own benefit in the fall hunting.

When the next still, misty night came, it found me afloat on the lonely
little pond with a dark lantern fastened to an upright stick just in
front of me in the canoe. In the shadow of the shores all was black as
Egypt; but out in the middle the outlines of the pond could be followed
vaguely by the heavy cloud of woods against the lighter sky. The
stillness was intense; every slightest sound,--the creak of a bough or
the ripple of a passing musquash, the plunk of a water drop into the
lake or the snap of a rotten twig, broken by the weight of clinging
mist,--came to the strained ear with startling suddenness. Then, as I
waited and sifted the night sounds, a dainty plop, plop, plop! sent the
canoe gliding like a shadow toward the shore whence the sounds had come.

When the lantern opened noiselessly, sending a broad beam of gray, full
of shadows and misty lights, through the even blackness of the night,
the deer stood revealed--a beautiful creature, shrinking back into the
forest's shadow, yet ever drawn forward by the sudden wonder of the
light.

She turned her head towards me, and her eyes blazed like great colored
lights in the lantern's reflection. They fascinated me; I could see
nothing but those great glowing spots, blazing and scintillating with
a kind of intense fear and wonder out of the darkness. She turned
away, unable to endure the glory any longer; then released from the
fascination of her eyes, I saw her hurrying along the shore, a graceful
living shadow among the shadows, rubbing her head among the bushes as if
to brush away fr