Having supped and smoked a comfortable pipe, they proceeded to bivouac for the night. By the advice of Baptiste, Reginald had determined to accustom his party, from the first, to those precautionary habits which might soon become so essential to their safety; a regular rotation of sentry duty was established, the horses were carefully secured, and every man lay down with his knife in his belt, and his loaded rifle at his side: the packs were all carefully piled, so as to form a low breastwork, from behind which they might fire in case of sudden attack; and when these dispositions were completed, those who were not on the watch wrapped themselves in their blankets or buffalo skins, and, with their feet towards the fire, slept as comfortably as on a bed of down. For two days they continued their march in a north–west direction, meeting with no incident worthy of record; the hunters found abundance of game of every description, and Monsieur Perrot’s skill was daily exercised upon prairie–hens, turkeys, and deer. On the third day, as they were wending their way leisurely down a wooded valley, the sharp crack of a rifle was heard at no great distance. Reginald, desiring to ascertain whether Indians or White men were hunting in the neighbourhood, halted his party, and went forward, accompanied by Baptiste, to endeavour, unperceived, to approach the person whose shot they had heard. A smooth grassy glade facilitated their project, and a slight column of smoke curling up from an adjoining thicket served to guide them towards the spot. Ere they had advanced far, the parting of the brushwood showed them that the object of their search was approaching the place where they stood, and they had barely time to conceal themselves in a bush of sumach, when the unknown hunter emerged from the thicket, dragging after him a fine deer. He was a powerful man of middling height, not very unlike Baptiste in dress and appearance, but even more embrowned and weather–beaten than the trusty guide; he seemed to be about fifty years of age, and the hair on his temples was scant and grey; his countenance was strikingly expressive of boldness and resolution, and his eye seemed as clear and bright as that of a man in the early prime of life. Leaning his rifle against an adjoining tree, he proceeded to handle and feel his quarry, to ascertain the proportions of fat and meat; the examination seemed not unsatisfactory, for when it was concluded he wiped the perspiration from his brow, and with a complacent smile muttered half aloud, “Ah, ‘t ain’t every day as a man can find a saddle like that in old Kentuck now—what with their dogs, and girdlins, and clearins, and hog–feedings, and the other devilments of the settlements, the deer’s all driven out of the country, or if it ain’t driven out, they run all the fat off, so that it’s only fit to feed one of your tradin’ town–bred fellows, who wouldn’t know a prime buck from a Lancaster sheep!”