It is wonderful what an amount of crime can be committed, even by a small dog, when, like the _Chourineur_ of Eugene Sue, he is under the glamour of blood. Of this there came to my knowledge a well-authenticated instance, one for the truth of which I can vouch. A settler in a remote bush-district had been to the nearest village, which was many miles from his clearing. It was in March, and the surface of the snow--which was quite two feet deep--was frozen to a hard crust, as he travelled homewards in his cutter, accompanied by a currish dog, not nearly so large as an average pointer. About nightfall, and when some two miles from home, a herd of nine deer crossed his track, struggling away into the woods with uncertain plunges, as the treacherous crust gave way beneath them at every bound. While they were yet in sight, the dog gave chase, and they all disappeared into the dark forest together; nor did the dog return to the call of his master, who, after whistling to him for a short time, proceeded on his way and drove home without him. Early next morning the cur made his appearance, glutted and gory, and looking the very picture of dissipation. Struck by his appearance, they took the back track on his trail, which led them to a hollow in the bush, where the snow was much trampled and draggled with blood, and in and around which every one of the nine deer lay dead, pulled down and throttled by one miserable cur, who had the mastery over them, because he could run on the surface of the snow, through which they sunk. The dog's master--at whose shanty I once stayed when on a fishing-excursion--was much mortified at the occurrence, as the deer-hunting season was past, and he was one of Nature's sportsmen, a game-keeper by instinct. I have but one more anecdote of a dog, for the present; and that is one for the truth of which I distinctly decline to vouch. It was imparted to me by a calker, who owned a woolly French poodle, which remarkable animal, he informed me, used to swim out regularly once a week,--on Saturday evenings, I think he said,--with a large wisp of tow in his mouth, upon the ascension of his fleas into which place of refuge, he would "let it slide" down the current and swim back tranquilly to the shore, there to slumber away another week in comparative comfort.[1] [Footnote 1: The calker's dog had probably never read Olaus Magnus, though that worthy Archbishop wrote something very like dog-Latin; but, as dwellers on the margin of the "Atlantic," we have too great a respect for a prelate who believed in the kraaken and the sea-serpent, not to refer our valued Cynophilist to the Thirty-Ninth Chapter of the Eighteenth Book _De Gentibus Septentrionalibus_, where he will find the same story told of the fox.--_Eds. Atlantic._] Having thus calked my Dog-Talk--bark, in fact--with this very tough bit of yarn, I now trustfully commit it to the mercies of the "Atlantic." THE RECKONING.