When he fired again both birds fell. Bluff looked as though half-ashamed of such easy work.
“Three already, eh? Nearly a chicken apiece, all around. Well, I might limit myself to just one more, and then call my part of the business off for to-day.”
He loaded himself down with the partridges, though Frank offered to carry one or more for him.
“You’ll need both hands for quick work, if we should happen to start a deer a little later on,” Bluff replied, giving Frank a cheery smile.
“Listen, there goes a gun!” said Frank, soon afterward.
“There’s another—yes, and a whole raft of them!” cried Bluff. “Of course it’s that crowd of Nackerson’s. I’m glad they’re pretty far away from here.”
“Yes, and we’ll make a detour, so as not to get any closer to them,” Frank said, as he changed their course.
“I hope this new ground will give us better luck,” Bluff went on.
They continued to push on until half a mile had been traversed.
It happened that Bluff was a little in advance of his chum, when, without the least warning, there was a sudden crash in the thicket. Then he saw something dun-colored spring away.
“Oh! Frank! look, there he goes skipping out; and it’s a three-pronged buck, at that!” he shouted.
Then, realizing that he might be interfering with the other’s aim, being in line with the fleeing deer, Bluff dropped flat to the ground.
That was Frank’s rifle, as Bluff well knew.
“Hurrah; he’s down, Frank; you got him that time! No, there he’s on his feet again, as sure as anything. Oh, why didn’t I have buckshot shells in my gun? There! That time you did drop him for keeps! Bully! bully! bully!”
Bluff immediately got upon his feet, and, as well as his burden would admit, started to run toward the spot were he had last seen the buck go down.
Frank was following close at his heels, calling to him to go slow, because it sometimes happened that a wounded buck proved himself a dangerous antagonist.
It turned out, however, that there was nothing to fear. The deer was dead when they arrived beside him.
“See, here’s where your first bullet struck him, Frank—just back of the shoulder. He must have been swerving when you fired that shot Would that have killed him, even if you didn’t fire again?”
“In time it would,” the other assured him, “though I’ve known deer to run miles before dropping, after being hit in the body. That was a poor shot for me.”