aced a buck,
roasted a la barbecue, the skin and head skillfully reconnected with
the body and posed, muzzle lifted, antlers laid well back, head
turned, ears alert, as he stood in the bush when the Trapper's bullet
cut him down. At one end of the table a bear's cub was in the act of
climbing a small tree, while at the other end a wild goose hung in
mid-air, suspended by a fine wire from the ceiling, with neck
extended, wings spread, legs streaming backward, as he looked when he
drove downward toward open water to his last feeding.

The great cabin was a bower of beauty and fragrance. The pungent odor
of gummy boughs and of bark, under which still lurked the
amber-colored sweat of heated days and sweltering nights, pervaded it.
On one side of the cabin hung a huge piece of white cotton cloth, on
which the Trapper, with a vast outlay of patience, had stitched small
cones of the pine into the conventional phrase,

"A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YE ALL."

"It must have taken you a good many evenings to have done that job,"
said Wild Bill, pointing with the ladle he held in his hand toward the
illuminated bit of sheeting.

"It did, Bill, it did," replied the Trapper, "and a solemn and a
lively time I had of it, for I hadn't but six big needles in the cabin
and I broke five on 'em the fust night, for the cones was gummy and
hard, and it takes a good, stiff needle to go through one ef the man
who is punchin' it through hasn't any thimble and the ball of his
thumb is bleedin'. Lord-a-massy, Bill, Rover knew the trouble I was
havin' as well as I did, for arter I had broken the second needle and
talked about it a moment, the old dog got oneasy and began to edge
away, and by the time I had broken the fourth needle and got through
washin' my thumb he had backed clean across the cabin and sat jammed
up in the corner out there flatter than a shingle."

"And what did he do when the fifth needle broke?" queried Bill, as he
thrust his ladle into the pot.

"Heavens and 'arth, Bill, why do ye ax sech foolish questions? Ye know
it wasn't a minit arter that fifth needle broke, leavin' the bigger
half stickin' under the nail of my forefinger, afore both of the pups
was goin' out through the door there as ef the devil was arter 'em
with a fryin' pan, and a chair a leetle behind him. But a man can't
stand everything, ef he be a Christian man and workin' away to git a
Christmas sign ready; can he, Bill?"

It is in harmony w