“I heard the cry of the painter, the howl of the wolf, and the hoarse bellow of the moose that night, and Crop crept close alongside of me, in our bush-shanty, and answered these forest sounds by a low growl, as if sayin’ to himself, that while he’d rayther keep oat of a fight, yet, if necessary, in defence of his master, he was ready to go in.  Wal, we started on up stream next mornin’, passed the second chain of lakes, and went along up the crooked and windin’ course of the stream, till towards night we came in sight of Mud Lake.  That lake is anything but handsome to my thinkin’; you saw it was gloomy and solemn enough, situated as it is away up on the top of the mountain, higher than any other waters I know of in these parts.  All about it are fir, and tamarack, and spruce, the lichens hanging like long grey hair away down from their stinted branches, while all around low bushes grow, and moss, sometimes a foot thick, covers the ground.  That, Judge, is the place for black flies and mosquitoes in June.  The black flies are all gone before this time in the summer, but if you’d a taken this trip the latter part of June, you’d have admitted that I’m tellin’ no lie.  If there’s any place in the round world where mosquitoes have longer bills, or the black flies swarm in mightier hosts, I don’t know where it is, and shan’t go there if I happen to find out its location.  I’ve a tolerably thick hide, but if they didn’t bite me some, I wouldn’t say so.  But you ought to have seen the deer feedin’ on the pond-lilies and grass in that lake I They were like sheep in a pasture; and out some fifty rods from the shore was a great moose, helpin’ himself to the eatables that grew there.  I laid my jacket down for Crop to watch, and waded quietly in towards where the moose was feedin’.  I got within twelve or fifteen rods of him, and spoke to him with my rifle.  He heard it, you may guess.  Without knowin’ who or what hurt him, he plunged right towards me for the shore; but he never got there alive.  You ought to have seen the scampering of the deer at the sound of my rifle!  Maybe there wasn’t much splashin’ of the water, and whistlin’, and snortin’, and puttin’ out for the shore among ’em.

“The next mornin’, I got up just as the sun was risin’, and a little way down on the shore of the lake I saw a buck.  Wal, he was one of ’em—­that buck was.  The horns on his head were like an old-fashioned round-posted chair, and if they hadn’t a dozen prongs on ’em, you may skin me!  He wasn’t as big as an ox, but a two-year-old that could match him, could brag of a pretty rapid growth.  I crept up behind a little clump of bushes to about fifteen rods of where he stood on the sandy beach, and sighting carefully at his head, let drive.  My gun hung fire a little, owin’ to the night-dews, but that buck went down, and after kickin’ a moment, laid still, and I took it for granted he was dead.  So I laid down my rifle, and went up to where he was, and with my