I expected to hear the voices of my
associates; but all was silent. I pushed on as fast as I could among
the trees. The camp had been placed in a pleasant open glade. I was
certain that I had reached the spot. I looked round on every side. No
one was there; but there were the black patches where the fires had
been, and a few bones, and straw scattered about, and other signs of a
deserted encampment. From the character of the ground the trail was
very indistinct. Still I thought that I could follow it, and off I set
as fast as I could walk. I had not gone far before I became aware that
I had lost the track. I looked about in every direction in vain. I
could not find it. I was getting very hungry. At last I could go on no
longer; so I bethought me that I would kill some bird or beast for
breakfast. On examining, however, my powder-flask, what was my dismay
to find that I had only five or six charges at the utmost. At that
early time of the year there were no berries or wild fruits ripe. Later
I might have found wild cherries in abundance, and raspberries, and
strawberries, on which I could have supported nature.

"I must take care not to throw a shot away," I said to myself, as I
looked about in search of game. Just then I saw the glimmer of water
through the trees, and walking on, I found myself by the side of a
beautiful lake, a mile or more long, and half a mile wide. I was not
certainly in a humour to contemplate its beauty, but I was very much in
the mood to admire some flocks of geese and ducks which were disporting
themselves on its surface, in happy ignorance of the presence of man. I
almost trembled with anxiety as I crept along the margin of the lake,
till I could get near enough to obtain a shot at one of them. A duck
would have satisfied me, but as a goose, being larger, would last
longer, I waited till one came near. A stately fellow came gliding up,
picking insects off the reeds close to the margin. I fired. He rose
and fluttered his wings awhile, and then down he flopped close to me. I
sprang forward like a famished wolf, and very nearly toppled heels over
head into the water, when, had I escaped drowning, I should, at all
events, have spoiled the remainder of my powder in my eagerness to grasp
my prey. At first he fluttered away from the land, but something turned
him, and he came back so close that I caught hold of a wing, and,
hauling him on shore, very soon put an end to his suff