126 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



Confederate soldiers, without flinching; but somehow this 

 pesky business unnerves him, and he is now shaking like a 

 leaf. He wouldn't dare shoot at anything less than the 

 broad side of the buck now, and — he blushes to' confess it, 

 even to himself — he's afraid he couldn't hit that. 



Again the Deer move forward, bent on finding out what 

 it was that moved and that made that noise. This time 

 their movement takes them down into- a little swale, so th_at 

 they are entirely hidden from the hunter. But he is sure 

 they will come on, and is aware that when they come out 

 of the swale they will be less than fifty yards from him. 

 Confound this nervousness! His heart is pounding his ribs 

 so that he is really afraid the Deer must hear it when. they 

 stop again. , * 



But his rifle is at his shoulder, and his left elbow is rest- , 

 ing on his left knee. In a few seconds the Deer emerge 

 from the draw, within thirty yards of him; but now — 

 plague take them!— they are behind a big hemlock-log that 

 is as high as the doe' s back. Her great dark eyes, and 

 those of her children, are peering over the log full at him, 

 while the great, spreading antlers of the buck reach up, it 

 seems, almost into the branches of the pinesr Yet the 

 hunter sits motionless — or as nearly so as possible— and, 

 the wind being in his. favor, the game has not yet found 

 out that he is alive; but they will soon. They move unea- 

 sily, a step or two at a time, from side to side. 



Finally, patience ceases to be a virtue. The hunter can 

 stand it no longer. He has cooled down somewhat, and 

 drawing a bead on the buck's neck, he pulls. Fortunately, 

 he wabbles on at the supreme moment, and the quarry falls 

 dead in his tracks. 



The doe and the fawns bound away as if shot out of a 

 cannon. Sir Hubert is still too much rattled to shoot on 

 the run; and, as he hoped, the surviving members of the 

 family, after having made a few jumps, halt to see why 

 paterfamilias doesn' t come, and then the sportsman plants 

 a bullet in the shoulder of the fawn nearest to him. The 

 others skip out again. He fires two more shots at them, 



