IX
A FANCY SHOT
THE things that had attracted Tom’s attention were so trifling inthemselves that only a person alertly observing would have noticed themat all. Yet Tom thought they might have significance, and he was bentupon finding out what that significance was.
First of all, he had observed that a little blind trail seemed to leadwestward from the tree, and in no other direction, as if it had beenmade by someone who visited the tree and then returned by the way hehad come, going no farther in any direction. The trail was so blindthat Tom could not be sure it was a trail at all. If so, it had beentraversed very infrequently, and at rather long intervals. If it hadbeen the only suggestive thing seen, the boy would probably not havegiven it a thought. But he observed also that the bark of the gum treewas a trifle scarred at two points, suggesting that some one with heavyboots on had recently climbed it.
As soon as the other boys had gone back to camp, Tom set to work tomake a closer inspection of his surroundings. He climbed the tree tothe crotch and looked about him. There was nothing there, but from thatheight he could trace the little trail through the bushes for perhapsfifty or a hundred yards. He satisfied himself in that way that it wasreally a trail, made by the passage of some living thing, man or beast,through the dense undergrowth.
“I’ll follow that trail after a while,” he resolved, “but I’ll saynothing about it now. I might be laughed at for my pains. Not that Imind that, of course. We fellows are well used to being laughed atamong ourselves. But when I say anything about this, I want to havesomething to tell that is worth telling. After all, it may be only thepath of a deer or of one of the queer little wild horses—tackeys, theycall them—that live in the swamps. Or a wild hog may have made it. Idon’t know, and I’m not going to talk about the thing till I can talkto some purpose.”
As he wriggled around in the crotch, he dropped his knife from hispocket.
“That’s a reminder,” he reflected, “that people sometimes drop thingswhen they don’t intend to. If anybody else has been roosting up herehe may have dropped things, too. I’ll recover my knife and then I’llsearch around the tree.”
He was on the ground now, and having replaced his knife he began aminute search of the space for ten or twenty feet around the tree. Itwas thickly carpeted with the densely-growing vegetation that is alwaysquick to take possession of every unoccupied inch of ground in the farsouthern swamps and woodlands. Searching such a space for small objectswas almost a hopeless task, and finding nothing, Tom was on the pointof giving up the attempt, when he trod upon something. Examining it,he found it to be an old corncob pipe with a short cane stem. It wasblackened by long smoking, and that side of it which had lain next tothe ground had begun to decay. But there was half-burned tobacco in itstill.
From all these facts Tom thought it likely that the pipe, while stillalight, had been dropped from the tree, and that its owner had failedto find it upon his descent.
“That means that somebody was using this tree for a lookout a goodwhile ago. I can’t imagine why or wherefore, but I mean to find out ifI can. Just now I hear Larry’s whistle calling me to dinner. I wonderhow he manages to make that shrill shrieking noise by putting twofingers into his mouth and blowing between them. I must get him toteach me the trick.”
It was decided at dinner that the deer hunt should occur as soon asthat meal was finished.
“The deer will be lying down, chewing the cud, at this time of day,”explained Larry to his two guests, who had never shared a deer hunt,“and so we shan’t disturb him in placing ourselves. What’s the natureof the ground, Cal? Can three of us cover it while the fourth drives?”
“We must,” Cal answered. “It may give some one of us a very long shot,but with nitro-powder cartridges these modern guns of ours will pitchbuckshot a long way. The marsh in which the deer is feeding is on asort of peninsula which is surrounded by water except on one side. Thatland side is a rather narrow neck, narrow enough for three guns tocover it, I think, if the guns are well handled. Fortunately the marshitself is small. If it weren’t we might drive all day, as we have nodogs, without routing the deer out. As it is, I think I can start him,and I’ll do the driving after I post you three at the three best pointsof observation.”
“How do you ‘drive,’ as you call it, Cal?” Dick asked.
“Well, if we had dogs and horses, as we always do in a regular deerhunt, the man appointed to drive would ride around to the farther sideof the swamp, and put the dogs into it. The dogs would scatter outinto an irregular line and zigzag to one side and the other in searchof the quarry. In that way they would advance till they found the deerand set him running toward the line of men on the posts. Every one ofthese would be intently looking and listening till the deer should comerunning at top speed in an effort to dash past his enemies and escape.The man on the post nearest where he breaks through is expected tobring him down with a quick shot aimed at his side, just behind theshoulder.”
“But what if he misses?”
“In that case the deer has won the game. As we have no dogs and thereare only four of us, I mean to post you three at the points I find bestsuited, and then I’ll play hounds myself. I’ll go round to the fartherside of the little swamp, invade it as noisily as I can, whooping andhallooing in the hope of getting the deer up. If I do, he’ll make adash to get out of the swamp, and if no one of you manages to shoothim in the act, we’ll have none of that juicy venison that you, Tom,thought you had almost in your mouth when I first told you that thedeer was here. Now let us be off. We’re burning daylight. Load withbuckshot cartridges.”
When the neck of the little peninsula was reached, Cal bade hiscomrades wait at the point from which their camp could be seen, whilehe should go over the ground and pick out the places to be occupied asposts.
On his return he placed the others each at the point he had chosen forhim, taking care that Tom and Dick should have the places near whichthe quarry was most likely to make his effort to break through.
“Now, you must keep perfectly still,” he admonished the twoinexperienced ones, “and keep both eyes and three ears, if you have somany, wide open. You may see the deer without hearing him, or you mayhear him tearing through the bushes before you see him. That will giveyou notice of his coming, but don’t let him fool you. He may not comestraight on from the spot at which you hear him. If he catches sight,sound or smell of you, he’ll veer off in some other direction. So ifyou hear him coming don’t move a muscle except those of your eyes.
“Now I’m off to drive. If I can, I’ll get him up and away. After thateverything will depend upon you.”
It was nearly half an hour before the boys heard Cal’s shoutings in thedistance, but slowly coming nearer. After that, in the eager watchingand waiting, the seconds seemed minutes, and the minutes draggedthemselves out into what seemed hours.
At last, however, Dick heard the deer breaking through bushes justahead of him. In another second the frightened creature burst into viewand Dick fired, missing the game, which instantly changed its courseand ran away toward its left, with the speed of the wind. Dick, in hisexcited disappointment, fired his second barrel at a hopelessly longrange.
Almost immediately he heard a shot from Tom’s gun, and after thatall was still. Cal struggled out of the swamp, while Larry and Dickmade their way toward Tom’s post, “to hear,” Cal said, “just whatexcuses the novices have invented on the spur of the moment by way ofaccounting for their bad marksmanship.”
“I have none to offer,” said Dick, manfully. “I missed my shot, that’sall.”
“How is it with you, Tom? What plea have you to offer?”
“None whatever,” answered Tom. “Yonder lies the deer by the side of thefallen tree. He was taking a flying leap over it when I shot him—onthe wing, as it were.”
The congratulations that followed this complete surprise may beimagined. Cal fairly “wreaked himself upon expression” in sounding hispraises of Tom’s superb marksman
ship, and better still, his coolnessand calmness under circumstances, as Cal phrased it, “that might havedisturbed the equipoise of an Egyptian mummy’s nerve centres.”
Tom took all this congratulation and extravagance of praise modestlyand with as little show of emotion as he had manifested while makinghis difficult shot.
Perhaps this was even more to his credit than the other. For this wasthe first time Tom Garnett had ever seen a deer hunt, or a live deer,either, for that matter.