It was near midnight when Black Jack, having prepared some faggots of pitch-pine, and selected three or four of the best marksmen, left the bivouac to look for deer. Habershaw himself, though lazy and inordinately impressed with a sense of his own dignity, and now confused with liquor, could not resist the attraction of this sport. He accordingly, not long after the others had departed, took a rifle, and, attended by his bull-dog, whom he never parted from on any occasion, slowly followed in the direction chosen by the hunters.
Those in advance had scarcely walked along the margin of the river a mile before they lighted their faggots, and began to beat the neighboring thickets; and their search was not protracted many minutes when the light of their torches was thrown full upon the eyes of a buck. A shot from one of the marksmen told with unerring precision in the forehead of the animal.
The report and the light brought the corpulent captain into the neighborhood. He had almost walked himself out of breath and, as he did not very well preserve his perpendicularity, or a straight line of march, he had several times been tripped up by the roots of trees, or by rocks and briers in his path. Exhausted, at length, and puzzled by the stupefaction of his own brain, as well as by the surrounding darkness, he sat down at the foot of a tree, determined to wait the return of the hunting party. His faithful and congenial "Beauty," not less pursy and short-winded than himself, and not more savage or surly in disposition, now couched upon his haunches immediately between his master's legs; and here this pair of beastly friends remained, silent and mutually soothed by their own companionship. During this interval the person who bore the fire, followed by one of the marksmen, crept slowly onward to the vicinity of the spot where the captain had seated himself. The lapse of time had proved too much for Habershaw's vigilance, and he had, at length, with his head resting against the trunk of the tree, fallen into a drunken slumber. The short crack of a rifle at hand, and the yell of his dog awakened him. He started upon his feet with sudden surprise, and stepping one pace forward, stumbled and fell over the dead body of his favorite Beauty, who lay beneath him weltering in blood. The shot was followed by a rush of the hunter up to the spot: it was Gideon Blake.