un loaded with buckshot. He wanted both venison and a pair of
horns; and, knowing the fancy of the deer for certain favourite
pastures, he had great hopes of finding the buck somewhere about the
place where he had last seen him. With flexible "larrigans" of oiled
cowhide on his feet, the hunter moved noiselessly and swiftly as a
panther, his keen pale-blue eyes peering from side to side through the
shadowy undergrowth. Not three steps aside from the path, moveless as
a stone and invisible among the spotted weeds and twigs, a crafty old
cock-partridge stood with head erect and unwinking eyes and watched
the dangerous intruder stride by.

Approaching the edge of the open, the young hunter kept himself
carefully hidden behind the fringing leafage and looked forth upon the
little meadow. No creature being in sight, he cut straight across the
grass to the water's edge, and scanned the muddy margin for
foot-prints. These he presently found in abundance, along between
grass and sedge. Most of the marks were old; but others were so fresh
that he knew the buck must have been there and departed within the
last ten minutes. Into some deep hoof-prints the water was still
oozing, while from others the trodden stems of sedge were slowly
struggling upright.

A smile of keen satisfaction passed over the young woodsman's face at
these signs. He prided himself on his skill in trailing, and the
primeval predatory elation thrilled his nerves. At a swift but easy
lope he took up that clear trail, and followed it back through the
grass toward the woods. It entered the woods not ten paces from the
point where the hunter himself had emerged, ran parallel with the old
wood-road for a dozen yards, and came to a plain halt in the heart of
a dense thicket of hemlock. From the thicket it went off in great
leaps in a direction at right angles to the path. There was not a
breath of wind stirring, to carry a scent. So the hunter realized that
his intended victim had been watching him from the thicket, and that
it was now a case of craft against craft. He tightened his belt for a
long chase, and set his lean jaws doggedly as he resumed the trail.

The buck, who was wise with the wisdom of experience, and apprised by
the echoes of the first gunshot of the fact that the truce was over,
had indeed been watching the hunter very sagaciously. The moment he
was satisfied that it was his trail the hunter was following, he had
set out at top speed, anxious t