[Gutenberg 42630] • The Outdoor Chums in the Big Woods; Or, Rival Hunters of Lumber Run

Crack!

That was Frank’s rifle, as Bluff well knew.

“Hurrah; he’s down, Frank; you got him that time! No, there he’s on his feet again, as sure as anything. Oh, why didn’t I have buckshot shells in my gun? There! That time you did drop him for keeps! Bully! bully! bully!”

Bluff immediately got upon his feet, and, as well as his burden would admit, started to run toward the spot were he had last seen the buck go down.

Frank was following close at his heels, calling to him to go slow, because it sometimes happened that a wounded buck proved himself a dangerous antagonist.

It turned out, however, that there was nothing to fear. The deer was dead when they arrived beside him.

“See, here’s where your first bullet struck him, Frank—just back of the shoulder. He must have been swerving when you fired that shot Would that have killed him, even if you didn’t fire again?”

“In time it would,” the other assured him, “though I’ve known deer to run miles before dropping, after being hit in the body. That was a poor shot for me.”

“But, when a buck is humping himself to get away, it strikes me a fellow is doing pretty well to be able to hit him at all,” Bluff remarked.

“I’m not proud of it, I can tell you. I had a fair chance, too,” Frank continued. “The second shot was better, and finished him at once. Well, here’s your venison, Bluff. What are you going to do with it now?”

“He’s a whole lot bigger than any of the little deer we shot down in Florida, that’s sure,” Bluff observed, “and, as we must be some miles away from camp, excuse me from helping to lug him there. Suppose we cut up the carcass, Frank? You’re a clever hand at that sort of work. We could make up a pack of the best parts; and hang up some more so it’d be out of the reach of foxes and skunks, and the like.”

“Yes, and pick it up to-morrow, or another day, when perhaps luck fails us,” ventured the leader, as though the idea appealed to him. “I think that is the best plan, Bluff, so here goes.”

Accordingly he set aside his gun, after replacing the two spent cartridges so as to always have the full set of six in magazine and chamber. After that he got busy with his hunting knife.

Bluff hovered around, ready to assist when asked. Frank knew considerable about such things, for he proved very deft with his sharp blade.

The buck’s head was hung from a tree, high enough to keep any animal from reaching it.

“Of course,” Frank explained, after they had managed to do this, “if a hungry bobcat came along we couldn’t hope to prevent it from getting there; and a Canada lynx would think nothing of making a spring twice that high. But what we want most of all are the antlers; and this will save them for us.”

He also made one package of meat to take home, and another that they hung from a limb the same way the buck’s head had been.

The Outdoor Chums in the Big Woods : or Rival Hunters of Lumber Run, Getting Ready, Among the Lumberjacks, Facing Trouble, Bear Trap, On the Trail, The Triumphant Return