at.

"We looked to our rifles and at one another, and it may well be that
our hats sat somewhat loosely upon our heads, from an involuntary
rising of the hair. 'What, in the name of all that is mysterious,'
cried my friend, in amazement, 'is that?' 'It is more than I know,' I
replied, as I placed a fresh cap on my rifle. After a few minutes, the
sounds were repeated, and the hills seemed to groan with affright as
they sent them back in wavy and quavering echoes from their rugged
sides.

"'We must understand this,' said my friend, as he led the way with a
cautious and stealthy movement towards the depths of the hollow, whence
the sounds came, and there, by the stream, on a little sand-bar, stood
old Sangamo's donkey, by the side of a deer. Old Sangamo himself was
stretched at full length on the bank, fast asleep. How he could have
slept on, with such an infernal roaring as that donkey made in those
old woods, six or eight miles outside of a fence, is more than I can
comprehend. But he did sleep through it all, and was wakened only by
a punch in the ribs with the butt of my rifle, instigated by pity for
the poor donkey that was being eaten up by the flies. We helped him
to load the carcass of the deer on the back of his donkey, and saw
him move off lazily towards home. I have heard a good many strange
noises in my day, but never, on any other occasion, have I listened
to anything to be at all compared with the noise made by the braying
of old Sangamo's donkey in the Chataugay woods."

As the Doctor concluded his story, the sharp crack of Spalding's rifle
broke the stillness of the night, and went reverberating among the
hills, and dying away over the lake. It was but a short distance from
our camp, in a little bay hidden away around a wooded promontory below
us. In a few minutes, the light was seen, rounding the point that hid
the bay from our view, and, as the boat landed in front of our tents,
Spalding and Martin lifted from it a fine two year old deer, shot
directly between the eyes.

[Illustration: How he could have slept on, with such an infernal
roaring as that donkey made in those old woods, six or eight miles
outside of a fence, is more than I can comprehend.--]

"There," said Spalding, "is the biggest, or what _was_ the biggest
fool of a deer in these woods. Do you believe that he stood perfectly
still, gazing in stupid astonishment at our light, until we were
within a dozen feet of him, when I dropped him