Thrifty Stock, and Other Stories

by Ben Ames Williams

Westley nodded; and Proutt, after a moment’s hesitation, stopped his horse. They got out, and Reck danced about their feet. Proutt tied the horse to a sapling beside the road; and they climbed the ruined stone wall and turned into the wood. Westley alone had a gun; the others were unarmed.

The course Saladine set for them was straight along the slope, moving neither up nor down; and the three men, accustomed to the woods, went quickly. Westley spoke to Reck now and then. His only word was the hunter’s command. “Get in there,” he said. “Get in. Go on.” And Reck ranged forward, and up, and down, covering a front of half a dozen rods as they advanced. Westley was in the middle, Saladine was below, Proutt above the other two.

Westley had suggested putting his hunting bell on Reck; but Proutt negatived that with a caustic word. “He’d know, then, you wanted birds,” he said. “And, anyways, it’d scare the deer.” So they followed the dog by sight or by the stirring of his feet among the leaves; and at times he was well ahead of them, and at times when he moved more slowly they were close upon his heels. At such moments Westley held them back till Reck should work ahead.

Whether Reck had any knowledge of what was in their minds, no man can say. There were moments when they saw he was uncertain, when he turned to look inquiringly back at them. But for the most part he worked steadily back and forth as a good dog will, quartering the ground by inches. And always he progressed along the ridge, and always they followed him. And Saladine, down the slope, watched Proutt as they moved on.

No man spoke, save that Westley urged Reck softly on when the dog turned back to look at them. And at the last, when he saw that Reck had found game, it needed no word to bring the three together, two or three rods behind the dog.

Reck, as the gunners say, was “marking game.” Nose down, he moved forward, foot by foot; and now and then he stopped for long seconds motionless, as though at point; but always he moved forward again. And Westley felt the cold sweat upon his forehead; and he looked at Proutt and saw the dog trainer licking his tight lips. Only Saladine kept a steady eye upon the dog and searched the thickets ahead.

After a rod or two Reck stopped, and this time he did not move. And Westley whispered to the others: “Walk it up, whatever it is. Move in.” So the men went slowly forward, eyes aching with the strain of staring into the shadows of the wood.

When Reck took his point he was well ahead of them. He held it while they came up beside him; and then, as they passed where the dog stood, something plunged in the brush ahead, and they all saw the swift flash of brown and the bobbing white tail as a buck deer drove straight away from them along the slope. And Proutt cried triumphantly:

“A deer, by God! I said it. I told you so. Shoot, Westley. Damn you, shoot!”

Westley stood still as still, and his heart was sunk a hundred fathoms deep. His hand was shaking and his eyes were blurred with tears. For Reck, who had no rightful concern with anything that roved the woods save the creatures which go on the wing, had marked a deer. Enough to damn him! Had hunted deer!...