“The sun hid itself behind the hills on the West, and still he was alone.  The shadows crept up the mountain peaks that stand up like grim giants away off in the East, and twilight began to throw its grey mantle over the lake; still he was alone.  The darkness began to gather around him; the forests along the shore to lose their distinctness and to stand in sombre and shadowy outline above the water; still no prospect of relief presented itself.  The twilight faded from the West, the stars stole out in the heavens, the milky way stretched its belt of light across the sky, and there he sat alone still on his rock, the night dews falling around him, and the night voices of the forest coming solemnly out over the water.  Things had now assumed a serious aspect.  He could not stretch his limbs save by standing erect, and it seemed inevitable that he must watch the stars during the night, as he had watched the sun during the day.  To sleep there was out of the question.  There was no room for a sleeping posture, and the danger of rolling down the rock into the water kept him wide awake.  At length the pleasant sound of oars, and voices in jolly converse, fell upon his ear, and he shouted.  Two sportsmen were returning from the Upper Lakes, and right welcome was the answer they returned to his call.  He was glad enough to be released from his rock, upon which, as he said, ’he had made up his mind that he should be compelled to roost, like a turkey on the ridge of a barn, for the night.’

“To go back from this digression,” continued the Doctor, “I repeat that every man has a vein of the vagabond, a streak of the savage in him, which can never be clean wiped out.  Educate him, polish him as you may, it will be in him still, and he will love to go off into the old woods at times, to lay around loose for a season, vagabondising among the wild and savage things of the wilderness.  It is but indulging the original instincts of our nature.  True, he will not relish his savage ways a great while.  His old habits will lead him back to civilization, to the luxury of a well-furnished room, the quiet of an easy chair, and the repose of a soft bed.  In a word to ‘clean up’ and shave and dress, so that when he looks into a glass he will see the shadow of a gentleman.”

CHAPTER IX.

HUNTING BY TORCH LIGHT—­AN INCOMPETENT JUDGE—­A NEW
SOUND IN THE FOREST—­OLD SANGAMO’S DONKEY.

Spalding and Martin went out upon the lake after dark, with one of the boats, to hunt by torch light.  This is done by placing a lighted torch, or a lamp upon a standard, placed upright in the bow of the boat, and so high that a man seated or lying upon the bottom of the craft, will have his head below it.  He must himself be in someway shaded from the light, which must be cast forward so that both the hunter and the boatman will be in the shadow.  A very common method is to make a box, a foot or less square,