"Why, these deer tracks," I said simply.

Wally gave me a look, of great pity.

"Guess you're green--one o' them city fellers, ain't ye, Mister?
Them ere's sheep tracks--my sheep. Wandered off int' th' woods a
spell ago, and I hain't seen the tarnal critters since. Came up
here lookin' for um this mornin'."

I glanced at Wally's fish basket, and thought of the nibbled lily
pads; but I said nothing. Wally was a great hunter, albeit
jealous; apt to think of all the game in the woods as being sent
by Providence to help him get a lazy living; and I knew little
about deer at that time. So I took him to camp, fed him, and sent
him away.

"Kinder keep a lookout for my sheep, will ye, Mister, down 't
this end o' the pond?" he said, pointing away from the deer
tracks. "If ye see ary one, send out word, and I'll come and
fetch 'im.--Needn't foller the tracks though; they wander like
all possessed this time o' year," he added earnestly as he went
away.

That afternoon I went over to a little pond, a mile distant from
my camp, and deeper in the woods. The shore was well cut up with
numerous deer tracks, and among the lily pads everywhere were
signs of recent feeding. There was a man's track here too, which
came cautiously out from a thick point of woods, and spied about
on the shore, and went back again more cautiously than before. I
took the measure of it back to camp, and found that it