The rifles were scarcely reloaded when the deep baying of the hounds was heard, and two more deer came crashing across the isthmus where we were stationed.  The foremost one went down before the doctor’s unerring rifle and cool aim, while the other ran the gauntlet of the three other rifles, horribly frightened, but unharmed, away.  The hounds were called off, and with our game in one of the boats, we rowed back around the promontory, and passed on towards the Saranac River, which connects by a tortuous course of five miles, the Lower Saranac with Round Lake.

Midway between these two lakes, is a fall, or rather rapids, down which the river descends some ten feet in five or six rods through a narrow rocky channel, around which the boats had to be carried.  While this was being done, Smith and Spalding adjusted their rods, eager to make up in catching trout what they failed to achieve in the matter of venison.  And they succeeded.  In twenty minutes they had fifteen beautiful fish, none weighing less than half a pound, safely deposited on the broad flat rock at the head of the rapids.  “One throw more,” said Smith, “and I’ve done;” and he cast his fly across the still water just above the fall.  Quick as thought it was taken by a two-pound trout.  Landing nets and gaff had been sent forward with the baggage, and without these it was an exciting and delicate thing to land that fish.  The game was, to prevent him dashing away down the rapids, or diving beneath the shelving rock above, the sharp edge of which would have severed the line like a knife.  Skillfully and beautifully Smith played him for a quarter of an hour, until at last the fish turned his orange belly to the surface, and ceased to struggle.  He was drowned.

We had in the morning directed the boatman in charge of the baggage to go on in advance, and erect our tents on an island in Round Lake.  When we entered this beautiful sheet of water, about four o’clock, we saw the white tents standing near the shore of the island, with a column of smoke curling gracefully up among the tall trees that overshadowed them.  When we arrived, we found everything in order.  They were pitched in a pleasant spot, looking out to the west over the water, while within were beds of green boughs from the spruce and fir trees, and bundles of boughs tied up like faggots for pillows.  Our first dinner in the wilderness was a pleasant one, albeit the cookery was somewhat primitive.  With fresh venison and trout, seasoned with sweet salt pork, we got through with it uncomplainingly.

This little lake is a gem.  It is, as its name purports, round, some four miles in diameter, surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills, beneath whose shadows it reposes in placid and quiet beauty.  On the northeast, Ballface Mountain rears its tall head far above the intervening ranges, while away off in the east Mount Marcy and Mount Seward stand out dim and shadowy against the sky.  Nearer are the Keene