| [12] | By G. W. Kendall. |
XIX.
THE FIRE-HUNT.
Samuel Sikes was one of the most inveterate hunters I ever knew. He delighted in no other pursuit or pastime, and though he pretended to cultivate a small spot of ground, yet so large a portion of his time was spent in the pursuit of game, that his agricultural interests suffered much for the want of proper attention. He lived a few miles from town, and as you passed his house, which stood a short distance from the main road, a few acres of corn and a small patch of potatoes might probably attract your notice as standing greatly in need of the hoe; but the most prominent objects about Sam’s domicile pertained to his favourite pursuit. A huge pair of antlers—a trophy of one of his proudest achievements—occupied a conspicuous place on the gable end; some ten or a dozen tall fishing-poles, though modestly stowed behind the chimney, projected far above the roof of the little cabin, and upon its unchinked walls, many a ’coon and deer-skin were undergoing the process of drying. If all these did not convince you that the proprietor was a sportsman, the varied and clamorous music of a score of hungry-looking hounds, as they issued forth in full cry at every passer-by, could not fail to force the conviction.
Sam had early found a companion to share with him his good or ill luck, and though he was yet on the green side of thirty, he was obliged to provide for some five or six little tallow-faced “responsibilities;” so he not only followed the chase from choice, but when his wife—who hated “fisherman’s luck” worse than Sam did a “miss” or a “nibble”—took him to account for spending so many broken days, Saturday afternoons, rainy days and odd hours, to say nothing of whole nights, in the woods, without bringing home so much as a cut-squirrel or horney-head, his ready reply was, that he was “ ’bleeged” to do the best he could to get meat for her and the “childer.”
The Fire-Hunt was Sam’s hobby, and though the legislature had recently passed an act prohibiting that mode of hunting, he continued to indulge, as freely as ever, in his favourite sport, resolutely maintaining that the law was “unconstitootional and agin reason.” He had often urged me to accompany him, just to see how “slick” he could shine a buck’s eyes; and such were the glowing accounts he had from time to time given me of his achievements in that way, that he had drawn from me a promise to go with him “some of these times.”
I was sitting one evening, after tea, upon the steps of the porch, enjoying the cool autumnal breeze, when my friend Sam Sikes suddenly made his appearance. He had come for me to go with him on a fire-hunt, and was mounted on his mule Blaze, with his pan upon one shoulder, and his musket on the other. Determined to have everything in readiness before calling on me, he had gone to the kitchen and lit a few light-wood splinters, which were now blazing in his pan, and which served the double purpose of lighting him through the enclosure, and of demonstrating to me the manner of hunting by night. As he approached the house, his light discovered me where I was sitting.
“Good evenin’, Major,” said he, “I’ve come out to see if you’ve a mind to take a little hunt to-night.”
“I believe not, Mr. Sikes,” I replied, feeling entirely too well satisfied with my pleasant seat in the cool breeze, to desire to change it for a night-ramble through the woods. “Not to-night, I thank you—it looks like rain.”
“Oh, ’shaw, ’taint gwine to rain, nohow—and I’m all fixed—come, come along, Major.”
As he spoke, he rode close to the porch, and his mule made several efforts to crop the shrubbery that grew by the door, which Sam very promptly opposed.