A TALE OF A TRAIL. 



251 



presence of man and lulled into gentle- 

 ness by the silence, was strolling down 

 the trail at the same time Joe was go- 

 ing up. Finding himself blocked in 

 his journey down the mountain, and 

 being in the neighborhood of good 

 browsing, he did not worry much be- 

 cause of finding the way blocked. 

 When I first saw him, shortly after my 

 arrival at the ledge, he was busily en- 

 gaged in foraging. He seemed so con- 

 tented that I had not the heart to inter- 

 rupt him. I, myself, was quite con- 

 tented at the time. The rest the mag- 

 nificent view, the rare opportunity of 

 studying a wild animal at close range, 

 all contributed. Besides, I bad seen 

 Joe coming down below the tree, and 

 I was anxious to see what would hap- 

 pen if he and the buck should meet 

 face to face. Joe shortly appeared on 

 the up side, and, emitting a grunt, pro- 

 ceeded to acquaint himself with the 

 surroundings. The deer and the in- 

 truder became surprisedly conscious 

 of each other's presence at the same 

 instant. As with a pendulum swing- 

 ing to and fro there is always a time 

 when there is no motion, so when we 

 are suddenly surprised we are for a 

 moment paralyzed into helplessness. 

 This condition lasts till the nerves 

 have adjusted themselves to the new 

 conditions. Joe's recovery was quick- 

 er than the deer's. Before he could 

 gather his strength for a spring, Joe 

 fired, and the buck, struck fairly in the 

 forehead, fell instantly. 



Up to that point the affair was or- 

 dinary. From me it provoked little 

 more than a sigh, and from Joe's di- 

 rection I imagined I heard a faint 

 grunt of satisfaction. I am not sure 

 of that, but I do know he leaned his 

 gun, a .45-70 Winchester, against the 

 roots and in the coolest possible man- 

 ner drew his knife to slit the gullet of 

 the helpless quarry. No sooner had 

 the keen knife-point entered the deer's 

 skin than there was a shift in the 

 scenes and something doing. The 

 buck leaped into life. Snorting with 

 pain and rage, with a dash of his 



horns he hurled the knife far down 

 the rocks. Joe himself was thrown 

 against the root mass with a force so 

 great as to cause him to scratch gravel 

 for a higher perch faster than he had 

 ever shinned into a tree. 



By that time I had a growing inter- 

 est in the proceedings. When I 

 reached the scene I found Joe, hatless, 

 perched among the topmost roots, the 

 Winchester on the ground, the buck 

 pawing at the rocks and tearing the 

 earth viciously with his horns. All I 

 had ever heard about the "mild and 

 gentle gleam of the placid, tender 

 eye," the pathos of the sandhill stag 

 and other stags too numerous to men- 

 tion, vanished right there ; went up the 

 stump with Joe, as it were. The 

 wounded buck was a roaring, murder- 

 ous force, threatening general destruc- 

 tion. If that was just a common mad 

 of the ordinary buck, I beg to be ex- 

 cused from offering myself for any 

 personal encounters with him. 



I lay up there more than an hour, 

 peering over the ledge at the semi- 

 comedy, semi-tragedy being enacted 

 below. The buck seemed to pine for 

 Joe, and Joe appeared to be pining for 

 his gun. Knife gone, no revolver, it 

 looked like a clean case of Joey get 

 your gun or it is all off. 



The buck seemed to be insanely pos- 

 sessed with the desire to fight. He 

 clambered on the trunk of the tree, 

 went up to the roots and made vicious 

 efforts to attack Joe, who climbed 

 down on the other side, thinking to 

 get his gun. As soon as his head dis- 

 appeared over the top of the mass, the 

 buck leaped down and rushed around 

 the base, snorting and pawing. Once 

 Joe barely reached the gun, but had no 

 time to use it. In fact, he dropped it 

 quicker than lightning, and began to 

 kick dirt for his perch in the roots. 

 He barely made it, even at the expense 

 of a considerable slit running Nor' by 

 Nor'east across his trousers. This 

 game of "you chase me and I'll chase 

 my gun" was getting to be serious 

 business. Without the gun the old 



