WARWICK WOODLANDS. 168 



The ball, which he had meant for the heart, his sight 

 being taken under the fore-shoulder, was raised and 

 thrown forward by the motion of the horse, and passed 

 clean through the neck close to the blade bone. Another 

 leap, wilder and loftier than the last! yet still the stag 

 dashed onward, with the blood gushing out in streams 

 from the wide wound, though as yet neither speed nor 

 strength appeared to be impaired, so fleetly did he scour- 

 the meadow. 



"He will cross Frank, yet!" cried Archer. "Mark! 

 mark him. Forester!" 



But, as he spoke, he set his rifle down against the fence, 

 and holloaed to the hounds, which instantly, obedient to 

 his well-known and cheery whoop, broke covert in a body, 

 and settled, heads up and sterns down, to the blazing 

 scent. 



At the same moment A came trotting out from his 



post, gun in hand; while at a thundering gallop, blas- 

 pheming awfully as he came on, and rating them for 

 "know-nothins, and blunderin etarnal spoil-sports," Tom 

 rounded the farther hill, and spurred across the level. By 

 this time they were all in sight of Forester, who stood on 

 foot, close to his horse, in the mouth of the last gorge, the 

 buck running across him sixty yards off, and quartering 

 a little from him toward the road ; the hounds were, how- 

 ever, all midway between him and the quarry, and as the 

 ground sloped steeply from the marksman, he was afraid 

 of firing low — but took a long, and, as it seemed, sure 

 aim at the head. 



The rifle flashed — a tine flew, splintered by the bullet, 

 from the brow antler, not an inch above the eye. 



"Give him the other!" shouted Archer. "Give him the 

 other barrel!" 



But Frank shook his head spitefully, and dropped the 

 muzzle of his piece. 



"By thunder! then, he's forgot his bullets — and hadn't 

 nothen to load up agen, when he missed the first time!" 



"Ha! ha! ha!" roared once again the Commodore — "ha! 

 ha ! hah ! — ha ! ha !" till rock and mountain rang again. 



"By the Etamal!" exclaimed Draw, perfectly frantic 



with passion and excitement — "By thunder! A , I 



guess you'd laugh if your best friends was all a dyin' at 



