heather, he had the privilege of walking two or three miles over the moor so as to get that stag between the wind and himself, so that it could not scent him or hear him.  Then he had the glorious right to get his rifle all ready, and steal and creep toward that stag to cut short his existence.  He has to be as careful and as sneaky as if he was a snake in the grass, going behind little hills and down into gullies, and sometimes almost crawling on his stomach where he goes over an open place, and doing everything he can to keep that stag from knowing his end is near.  Sometimes he follows his victim all day, and the sun goes down before he has the glorious right of standing up and lodging a bullet in its unsuspecting heart.  “So you see,” said Jone, “he gets a lot for his hundred and fifty dollars.”

“They do get a good deal more for their money than I thought they did,” said I; “but I wonder if those rich sportsmen ever think that if they would take the money that they pay for shooting thirty or forty stags in one season, they might buy a rhinoceros, which they could set up on a hill and shoot at every morning if they liked.  A game animal like that would last them for years, and if they ever felt like it, they could ask their friends to help them shoot without costing them anything.”

Jone is pretty hard on sport with killing in it.  He does not mind eating meat, but he likes to have the butcher do the killing.  But I reckon he is a little too tender-hearted.  But, as for me, I like sport of some kinds, especially when you don’t have your pity or your sympathies awakened by seeing your prey enjoying life when you are seeking to encompass his end.  Of course, by that I mean fishing.

There are a good many trout in the lake, and people can hire the privilege of fishing for them; and I begged Jone to let me go out in a boat and fish.  He was rather in favor of staying ashore and fishing in the little river, but I didn’t want to do that.  I wanted to go out and have some regular lake fishing.  At last Jone agreed, provided I would not expect him to have anything to do with the fishing.  “Of course I don’t expect anything like that,” said I; “and it would be a good deal better for you to stay on shore.  The landlord says a gilly will go along to row the boat and attend to the lines and rods and all that, and so there won’t be any need for you at all, and you can stay on shore with your book, and watch if you like.”

“And suppose you tumble overboard,” said Jone.

“Then you can swim out,” I said, “and perhaps wade a good deal of the way.  I don’t suppose we need go far from the bank.”

Jone laughed, and said he was going too.

“Very well,” said I; “but you have got to stay in the bow, with your back to me, and take an interesting book with you, for it is a long time since I have done any fishing, and I am not going to do it with two men watching me and telling me how I ought to do it and how I oughtn’t to.  One will be enough.”