With Trapper Jim in the North Woods Part 9

Steve was beginning to complain of being nearly done up, when Max asked him not to talk again only in a whisper, as they were now close upon the other feeding ground of the coveted deer.

And this caused Steve to brighten up immediately. In his eagerness to find game his pains were forgotten.

Max arranged that they separate and advance along parallel lines, so as to cover more territory.

He had been going on himself some little time when suddenly he heard Steve's gun roar. A second shot followed fast on the heels of the first, and Max, excited, ran in the direction of the sounds. A few minutes later he heard the l.u.s.ty voice of Steve calling out:

"Take care, Max, he knows you're coming! Run for it! He's starting for you! Get a tree, Max, get a tree! He's a holy terror!"

CHAPTER VII.

THE UNWELCOME GUEST.

Max saw what had happened in that one glance he took.

Steve had met his deer at last; and sure enough it was a st.u.r.dy buck that had five p.r.o.ngs to his antlers, showing his years.

Whatever upset Steve could only be guessed; but although he had certainly sent in two shots he had failed to bag the game.

Perhaps he wounded the deer with the first shot and the animal had fallen. Flushed with triumph, Steve had given a yell and started to hasten toward his quarry with the intention of bleeding it, as he understood should be done.

Then, when the buck scrambled to his feet, and charged straight at the young hunter, Steve had been so rattled that he missed entirely with his second shot.

After that it was run or take to a tree for Steve.

And sheltered behind an oak, around which he had been chased again and again by the angry buck, Steve had seen his chum appear in sight.

It was then he shouted his warning.

Max had no intention of picking out a tree for himself, as Steve suggested; at least not so early in the game. Time enough for that when he found he had made as bad a bungle of the affair as his chum seemed to have done.

Here was the fine chance to try his new rifle that he had been hoping would come along.

"Look out!"

Max hardly heard this last warning, cry from the boy who looked out behind the friendly oak. He had dropped on his right knee and raised his gun.

The buck was coming on pretty fast, considering the fact that he seemed to limp and be losing blood from the wound Steve had given him.

Max knew he had a difficult task to place his bullet where it was calculated to do the most good. There was little of the deer's breast exposed as with lowered head he charged toward this new enemy. But Max had all the necessary requisites that go to make up the good hunter--a quick eye, a sure hand, and excellent judgment in a pinch.

He took a quick aim, and meant to fire while the buck was still a little way off. This was to give him a chance to pump a new cartridge into the firing chamber of his gun in case the first shot failed to do the work.

After that--well, of course, there still remained the tree Steve recommended, and Steve ought to know a good thing when he saw it, since he had been saved from those really dangerous-looking antlers by a sheltering tree.

But, then, Max did not mean to register a miss.

He pressed the trigger at just the right time as the buck was rising in the air. And when he saw the deer crash to the ground, although he felt a thrill of satisfaction, cautious Max was not like Steve, rushing headlong forward to bleed his game.

On the contrary, his first act was to go through the rapid action that placed his rifle in serviceable condition again.

"Take care, Max," yelled Steve, seeing the buck struggling, "that's how he fooled me, the sharp dodger! He's the tricky one, all right, you bet!

Watch him climb up again, now! Take that big tree right alongside you, Max!"

But instead of doing this Max advanced toward the spot where the buck had fallen. He was ready to send in another shot should it be needed. But there was no necessity.

The buck gave one last violent kick and then lay still.

"All over, Steve; you can come along," said Max, beckoning toward the other.

Steve stopped to pick up his gun, examined it with apparent solicitude, as if to make sure it had not been injured, and then carefully replaced the discharged sh.e.l.ls with fresh ones.

"You never can tell what them there old five-p.r.o.nged bucks _will_ do," he said, as he came up to where Max stood, surveying their prize; "and it's best to be on the safe side; so that's why I waited to load my gun."

"And I reckon, Steve," said Max, with a smile, "that if you'd waited before to see if your buck got up again, you'd have downed him for keeps with that second barrel, and then you wouldn't have had to hunt up the safe side of a tree."

"Guess that's all to the good, Max," replied the other, humbly.

"Pretty fine-looking buck, ain't he, Steve?"

"Well, I should say yes," was the answer. "And just to think he's the very five-p.r.o.nged old boy I've been talking about this long while."

"My, but he acted as though he was mad at you!" Max went on, anxious to hear some of the particulars of what had happened.

"That's straight goods, Max, and he had reason to be mad at me. I plunked him with that first shot and he went down. I thought I had him and started to run in, when, shucks, he got up again!"

"Then you fired again, but so rapidly that you missed; was that it, Steve?"

"Oh, I admit I was some rattled," replied the other.

"And then after you missed him, Steve?"

"Huh, after that things commenced to happen. They came so fast they kind of got me twisted," and Steve made a comical face with this statement that almost set the other off into a roar of laughter.

But he knew that if he gave way it might offend Steve and cause him to bottle up his explanation; so Max held in.

"And then?" he went on.

"Oh," said Steve, "I saw a tree and headed for it kerslam. But the old buck he seemed to be on the high-speed gear himself. First thing I knew he b.u.mped me for fair, and then came back to stick me with his horns. But I didn't just care for knowing him any closer, and I rolled out of the way."

"You managed to get your tree after that, didn't you, Steve?"

"Seems like I did, Max, though honest to goodness, now, if you asked me how I did it I couldn't tell you. Reckon I must have just _flown_."

"Yes," laughed Max, "they always say fear has wings."