Almost at the report, her long tail fell flat to her body, and she began to run much faster. He knew he had hit her, and before she had gone fifty yards, and while she was crossing an open bit of meadow, she fell. Jack rode up to her, and on turning her over found that he had made a good shot. A ball had entered her back, just to the right of the spine, and had pierced both lungs and heart.
Turning her over, to get her ready to put on the horse, he was glad to see that she was a barren doe, one that had not produced a fawn that spring, and so would be fat and good eating. She was pretty big, however, and Jack was a little uncertain just how he was going to get her on his horse. Of course by cutting her up it could easily have been done, for then the quarters would not be too heavy for him to handle. At first he thought that he would take in the whole animal, but considering the time that this might take, and the fact that he had to ride a long way before overtaking his companions, he determined to do things in the easier way. He skinned the deer, therefore, cut off the shoulders and hams, and tied them on his horse, and then taking out sirloins and tenderloins, and some of the fat, wrapped this up in the skin, and put that on behind the saddle. Now he had a fairly compact load, which could be easily carried, and would not be a great additional weight for his horse; while on the ground were left all the bones of the deer, except those of the legs. This method of butchering he had learned from the Indians the summer before.
All this had taken some little time, and when Jack looked at the sun he saw that the morning was half gone. Hugh had told him that they would follow the trail around the point of the mountains, and would then strike the Carroll Road, and bend back toward the river again. This meant that if he could cross the point of the mountains he would save several miles travel, and this he determined to do.
Before starting, he tightened up his cinches carefully, for he knew that the pieces of meat tied on his saddle would give it more or less side motion, and he did not want it to chafe Pawnee's back. Then he climbed into the saddle and started. By this time the sun was pouring down hot upon him, and there was no breeze. From the high ridges that he crossed from time to time he had a wide view of the prairie, and of the distant mountains, the Little Belts and Snowies, which rose from the plain a long way to the south. Here and there on the prairie were black dots, which he knew were buffalo, and other white ones, much nearer, which were antelope. Occasionally, as he rode along, a great sage grouse would rise from the ground near his horse's feet, or a jack-rabbit would start up, and after running fifteen or twenty yards, would stop, sit up, raise its enormous ears, look at him for a moment, and then settle back on all fours, and flatten itself on the ground, so that if he took his eye off it for a moment he could not find it again. It seemed to him then, as it had so often seemed before, a wonderful thing to see how absolutely this wild creature, like so many others, could disappear from sight even while one was looking at it.