THE TAMING OF OL’ BUCK 221 
course, had once more gone back to sniff before 
letting the herd settle down to rest), they stalked 
off to leeward, and crept in as silently as they 
could toward an open space where they thought 
the deer would be napping. But even as the 
trees thinned, and they got a view into the open- 
ing, they saw the white tails vanishing into the 
opposite foliage. Raising their guns, they fired, 
and then sprang forward to pick up the trail. 
They cried aloud with joy—there was blood on 
the snow! Forgetful now of weariness, of tear- 
ing laurel, of slippery rocks, they almost ran 
along the trail. But the blood signs grew no 
thicker, the wounded deer did not seem to have 
dropped out of the herd. Up to the peak of the 
mountain, then over a seventy degree cliff wall, 
the tracks led them, and plunged into the wilder- 
ness on the farther side. Once out of the summit 
snow, too, the tracks grew hard to follow, and as 
dusk came on two weary and empty-handed men 
were plugging back along the rutty, frozen road 
to the village, their guns heavy in their hands. 
A poor day’s work, they said. 
And Ol!’ Buck agreed with them, with bitter- 
