was
permitted to float out to a position from which we could see the
sportsmen as they approached the game. Slowly but steadily they moved,
the paddle remaining in the water, sculling the little craft along as
if it were a log drifting in the water. The deer occasionally raised
their heads, looking all around, evidently regarding the boat as a
harmless thing floating in from the lake. After gazing thus about them
they stooped their heads again, and went on feeding, as if no danger
were near them. The hunters drifted within seventy or eighty yards of
the game, when a column of white smoke shot suddenly up from the bow
of the boat, and the report of Smith's rifle rang out sharp and clear
over the lake. We saw where the ball struck the water just beyond the
deer, passing directly under its belly, possibly high enough to graze
its body. At the flash and report of the rifle, the animal leaped high
into the air, bounded in affright this way and that for a moment, and
then straightened itself for the woods. We heard his snort as he went
crashing up the hillside.

Reader, should you ever drift out to this beautiful lake, you will
find on the ridge just above where Bog River comes tumbling, and
roaring, and foaming over the rocks into the lake, the charred remains
of a campfire, built against a great log that was once the trunk of a
tall forest tree. If you should visit it within a year or two, you
will perhaps notice some forked stakes standing a few feet from the
place of the fire, and a bed of withered and dry boughs (now fresh
and green). Well, our tents were stretched over those stakes, those
boughs were our bed, and those charred chunks are the remains of our
campfire, that sent a sepulchral light among the forest trees around.

The sounds that come upon the ear during the night in a far off place
like this, are peculiar. The old owl hoots mournfully, the frogs
bellow hoarsely along the reedy shore, while the tree toads are
quavering from among the branches of the scrubby trees that grow along
the rocky banks; the whippoorwill pipes shrilly in the forest depths;
the breeze murmurs among the foliage of the tall old pines, while the
everlasting roar of the waters, as they go tumbling down the rocks, is
always heard. However diversified these sounds may be, they all invite
to repose. They fall soothingly upon the ear, and though all are
distinctly heard, yet strange as it may seem, there is a strong
impression upon the min