was obliged to
"kape him for a week, an' trate him to the best all the time." The
proposal was agreed to, and Larry, seizing the haunch, which was still
covered with the mud contracted in "the hole," proceeded to exhibit his
powers as a cook.

The rain, which had been coming down as if a second flood were about to
deluge the earth, had ceased at this time, and the sun succeeded, for a
few hours, in struggling through the murky clouds and pouring a flood of
light and heat over hill and plain; the result of which was, that, along
the whole length of Little Creek, there was an eruption of blankets, and
shirts, and inexpressibles, and other garments, which stood much in need
of being dried, and which, as they fluttered and flapped their
many-coloured folds in the light breeze, gave the settlement the
appearance--as Captain Bunting expressed it--of being "dressed from stem
to stern." The steam that arose from these habiliments, and from the
soaking earth, and from the drenched forest, covered the face of nature
with a sort of luminous mist that was quite cheering, by contrast with
the leaden gloom that had preceded it, and filled with a romantic glow
the bosoms of such miners as had any romance left in their natures.

Larry O'Neil was one of these, and he went about his work whistling
violently. We will not take upon us to say how much of his romance was
due to the haunch of venison. We would not, if called on to do it,
undertake to say how much of the romance and enjoyment of a pic-nic
party would evaporate, if it were suddenly announced that "the hamper"
had been forgotten, or that it had fallen and the contents been smashed
and mixed. We turn from such ungenerous and gross contemplations to the
cooking of that haunch of venison, which, as it was done after a fashion
never known to Soyer, and may be useful in after-years to readers of
this chronicle, whose lot it may be, perchance, to stand in need of such
knowledge, we shall carefully describe.

It is not necessary to enlarge upon the preliminaries. We need hardly
say that Larry washed off the mud, and that he passed flattering remarks
upon his own abilities and prowess, and, in very irreverent tones and
terms, addressed Ah-wow, who smoked his pipe and looked at him. All
that, and a great deal more, we leave to our reader's well-known and
vivid imagination. Suffice it that the venison was duly washed, and a
huge fire, with much difficulty, kindled, and a number