108 THE STILL-HUNTER, 



some five minutes carefully scanning every spot in 

 sight and studying every bush. And your patience is 

 at last rewarded. For suddenly you see a slight move- 

 ment and a delicate head nips off some twigs from a 

 bush you were looking directly at a moment ago, and 

 which you then thought you could see entirely through. 

 And now you see the body and the points of a pair of 

 small horns glisten on its head. Astonishing, is it 

 not, to see how quickly the outlines of a deer begin to 

 develop the instant you know it is one ? A fine 

 young spike-buck that is. And now do not forget 

 your last shot and what I told you about holding a 

 fine sight. 



Bang! goes the rifle. The buck takes two jumps and 

 strikes an attitude a sculptor would envy. He is evi- 

 dently lost in wonder, and looks about as if in doubt 

 which way to run, or whether in fact there be any oc- 

 casion to run at all. A rustic youth, perhaps, that has 

 never before heard a rifle; or he may be wild enough, 

 yet be bewildered by the conformation of the ridges, 

 making it impossible for him to tell whence the sound 

 comes. 



Bang! goes another shot. The buck runs a few 

 jumps and again stops and looks about half dazed. 



Bang! goes another shot from the rifle that now 

 trembles like a leaf in your hand. The buck takes a 

 few more jumps, stops for a second, then disappears 

 in a high rolling wavy line of dark gray and white. 



You think you took a good aim that time and were 

 quite cool ? 



, Well, it was a decided improvement upon the last 

 shot. But you were the victim of an error into which 

 the expert often falls overshooting on a down-hill 

 shot. The tendency to do this is one of the curious 



