se are guarded by the standers while the game is driven down
from the opposite direction. A large drive may have a dozen of these
stands, by one of which the deer will almost certainly pass, but which
one nobody knows. Quiet is absolutely necessary and a cigar is fatal
to sport, but concealment is useless, as these animals see imperfectly
in daylight.

I had not to wait long before I caught the distant cheering and
hand-clapping of the drivers as they encouraged the dogs to hunt.
In the quiet of the sombre woods every sound was distinctly audible.
Suddenly three or four quick, sharp yelps brought my gun to the
"ready," and the hammers clicked as a burst of music followed. But
above the clamor of the hounds came the crack of the driver's whip,
and his voice, mellowed by distance, was heard in angry tones: "Come
back yah, you good-for-nuttin', wutless lee' rabbit-dog, you! I sway
maussa ha' for shoot da' puppy 'fore he spile ebery dog in de pack!"

Soon, however, came another open, deep and musical, and there was no
mistaking old Drummer's trail-note: then Killbuck joined in, and then
the cry became general. For a while the broken, quavering tongue tells
that the dogs are only trailing and the deer is still cowering in his
bed, or perhaps has sneaked out of the drive at the first sound of the
horn. Hark! what a burst! They had "started" within two hundred yards
of me. The next moment there was a rustle of leaves, and a yearling
doe dashed by. I am not a dead shot, and have nothing to say about
that first barrel, but the second sent her down and over with a roll
that almost broke her neck. The dogs were stopped and the deer
thrown over the pommel of one of the boys, and we rode on to try the
Brunswick swamp. The boy had assured us that "One pow'ful big buck bin
in day (there) las' night. I see all he track gwine in, an' I nebber
see none come out."

We were soon strung along the narrow dam across which the game was to
be forced by the drivers, who had to make their way through an ugly
bog among cypress "knees" and dense brier-patches. Jack Parker stood
next to me, fidgeting about uneasily, because it was against rules to
talk on stand. Jack's prominent feature was his nose, and he had
an incorrigible trick of blowing it "out loud" whenever there was a
particular reason for keeping perfectly quiet. The dogs had begun
to open, and their loose, scattering trail-notes indicated turkeys.
Looking directly before me, I saw sev