He insisted that he had seen some, by the
side of which the largest we had looked upon by daylight, were mere
fawns, and thereupon he undertook to establish a theory that the large
deer fed by night and the smaller ones by day. This would have been
all well enough, were it not for the fact, understood by every
experienced night-hunter, that by the spectral and uncertain light of
the lamp, or torch, a deer, when seen standing in the water, or on the
reedy banks, is in appearance magnified to twice its actual
dimensions. To this Smith at last assented, since to deny the
proposition, involved the conclusion that he had killed the wrong
deer; for the one he shot at, as it stood in the edge of the water,
though much smaller than some he had seen, appeared greatly larger
than the one he killed.
CHAPTER XV.
HOOKING UP TROUT--THE LEFT BRANCH--THE RAPIDS--A FIGHT WITH A BUCK.
We started down stream in the morning, towards the forks, intending to
ascend the left branch to Little Tupper's Lake. We reached the forks
at three o'clock. Directly opposite to where the right branch enters,
a small cold stream comes in among a cluster of alder bushes on the
eastern shore. At the mouth of this little stream, which one can step
across, the trout congregate. We could see them laying in shoals along
the bottom; but the sun shone down bright and warm into the clear
water, and not a trout would rise to the fly, or touch a bait.
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