lying and was standing over it when I fired. I looked and saw some short hair lying on the snow, and told Mr. Sheldon that that looked as if I had made a square shot and that the dogs had gone after the well ones we had been following, that this one was an old buck which we hadn't disturbed before. I thought perhaps he had got up to see the flock that we were following go by. We didn't follow him more than ten rods before we found where he lay last. He was a very large buck, a full mate for either of those we already had. A little ways back we had crossed a coon's track and we knew that he had been along in the latter part of the night, as it snowed in the earlier part of the night. We thought he hadn't gone far, so we agreed that Sheldon should follow his tracks and find his tree, (at that time coon skins were valuable) while we went back about a mile, to a lone settler's, by the name of Plaster, (who lived on the openings) and borrowed an ax. When we came back to the woods we were to halloo and he was to answer us. We had to do what we did very quickly as it was getting near night. When we had borrowed the ax and were nearly back to the woods again, we heard the report of Sheldon's rifle, as it rang out of the timber clear and sharp and died away in the oak openings. When we got into the woods we hallooed for him, he answered and we went to him; he had found the tree. We asked him what he had shot at, he said at a deer, but missed him. We cut down the tree and were rewarded by getting four coons. Afterward I sold the coon skins in Detroit for a dollar apiece. That Mr. Arvin Sheldon is now an old resident of the town of Taylor and lives about two miles south-west of me. After we got the tree cut down and the coons secure, it was between sundown and dark. We were six or seven miles from home and then had to take the ax home. Late that evening, when I got back under the old paternal roof, there was one there who was very tired but the excitement of the day helped him a little. By hunting (and it was hard work for me as I made a business of it) I accumulated a considerable sum of money. Father had earned and saved some money, so that with what I had, he made out enough to pay off the mortgage to Mrs. Phlihaven and had it cancelled. Then his farm was clear. If I had not felt anxious about it myself, the joy expressed by the other members of the family, when they knew that the mortgage was paid, would have been a sufficient reward for all the labors I had performed, for all the weary walks, the running and racing done, while upon the chase, both day and night.