This farmer had chosen a most beautiful spot for his residence.  The farm occupied a space of some hundred acres on a gentle eminence, crested with yellow poplars and laurels.  Around it rolled a mountain stream.  So beautiful was the position and so many its advantages, that young Boone used often to pause in admiration, on his way to the deeper woods beyond the verge of human habitation.  Who can say that the same dreamy thoughts that inspired the pen of the eloquent Rousseau, did not occupy the mind of the young hunter as he passed this rural abode?  We hope we shall not be suspected of a wish to offer a tale of romance, as we relate, how the mighty hunter of wild beasts and men was himself subdued, and that by the most timid and gentle of beings.  We put down the facts as we find them recorded, and our conscience is quieted, by finding them perfectly natural to the time, place, and circumstances.

Young Boone was one night engaged in a fire hunt, with a young friend.  Their course led them to the deeply timbered bottom that skirted the stream which wound round this pleasant plantation.  That the reader may have an idea what sort of a pursuit it was that young Boone was engaged in, during an event so decisive of his future fortunes, we present a brief sketch of a night fire hunt.  Two persons are indispensable to it.  The horseman that precedes, bears on his shoulder what is called a fire pan, full of blazing pine knots, which casts a bright and flickering glare far through the forest.  The second follows at some distance, with his rifle prepared for action.  No spectacle is more impressive than this of pairs of hunters, thus kindling the forest into a glare.  The deer, reposing quietly in his thicket, is awakened by the approaching cavalcade, and instead of flying from the portentous brilliance, remains stupidly gazing upon it, as if charmed to the spot.  The animal is betrayed to its doom the gleaming of its fixed and innocent eyes.  This cruel mode of securing a fatal shot, is called in hunter’s phrase, shining the eyes.

The two young men reached a corner of the farmer’s field at an early hour in the evening.  Young Boone gave the customary signal to his mounted companion preceding him, to stop, an indication that he had shined the eyes of a deer.  Boone dismounted, and fastened his horse to a tree.  Ascertaining that his rifle was in order, he advanced cautiously behind a covert of bushes, to reach the right distance for a shot.  The deer is remarkable for the beauty of its eyes when thus shined.  The mild brilliance of the two orbs was distinctly visible.  Whether warned by a presentiment, or arrested by a palpitation, and strange feelings within, at noting a new expression in the blue and dewy lights that gleamed to his heart, we say not.  But the unerring rifle fell, and a rustling told him that the game had fled.  Something whispered him it was not a deer; and yet the fleet step, as the game