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must understand that from this time on, my association with November Joe was not continuous but fitful, and that after the events I have just written down I went back to Quebec, where I became once more immersed in my business.

Of Joe I heard from time to time, generally by means of smudged letters obviously written from camp and usually smelling of wood smoke. It was such a letter, which, in the following year, caused me once more to seek November. It ran as follows:

Mr. Quaritch, sir, last week I was up to Widdeney Pond and I see a wonderful red deer buck. I guess he come out of the thick Maine woods to take the place o' that fella you shot there last fall. This great fella has had a accident to his horns or something for they come out of his head thick and stunted-like and all