Acting on his suggestion, we retraced our steps, and found, as he had predicted, that the buck, after taking the water, had swum up the river and taken refuge on the west side of the lower island. We saw him standing near the edge of the water, partially hidden by the trunk of a fallen pine, when we both fired our rifles at the same instant. This did not, however, drop him, for he bounded across the island, and took the opposite channel in gallant style. As the distance from which we fired was less than a hundred yards, we concluded that one of us at least had hit him. Reinforced by my old hound Towler, who, attracted by the firing, had joined us, we recrossed the river, and put the dog on the track. Towler was in high spirits, and soon made the wood ring with music pleasant to the hunter’s ear. We momentarily expected to see our quarry again take the water; but from the continued howling of the hound in the same spot, I began to think the buck was standing at bay, which was really the case; for on my near approach he was busily employed with his head down, keeping off old Towler by making sudden plunges at him every now and then. The moment he saw me, he made a rush for the river, but as he passed me on the full bound, I fired at his fore-shoulder; and though he still continued his course to the river, I knew by the jet of blood which followed my shot that his fate was sealed. Near the river he made a sudden turn, striking his head against a hemlock tree, and at the same instant a shot from my companion stretched him lifeless on the ground. And thus concluded an exciting chase of more than two hours. This was the largest buck I ever killed, for he weighed, after he was skinned and dressed, two hundred and thirty pounds. We found that four out of the five shots had hit him. The last shot I fired, cut away the small end of his heart, though he actually managed to run thirty or forty paces afterwards. Deer-hunting is a very exciting sport; but I prefer still-hunting (or deer-stalling, as it is called in the Highlands of Scotland) to driving them into the lakes and rivers with hounds. The deer are not now nearly so numerous as they formerly were. Civilization has driven them back into the unsurveyed lands or less populated townships. To give my readers some idea how plentiful these wild denizens of the forest were, some years since, I need only mention that a Trapper with whom I was acquainted, and four of his companions, passed my house on a small raft, on which lay the carcasses of thirty-two deer—the trophies of a fortnight’s chase near Stony Lake. The greater number of these were fine bucks.