He had parted some low bushes, and was just looking for some favorable spot at which to bend down, when something caused him to look up the brook. There, to his astonishment and delight, he beheld a beautiful fawn, standing in several inches of water, watching some birds which circled close by.
"Oh, what a shot!" was Dave's thought, and as quietly as a mouse he fell back out of sight and then ran to where he had left his gun. The weapon was ready for use, and soon he was at the brook once more.
There was no breeze blowing, and the only sound that broke the stillness was the rushing of the little watercourse and the songs of half a dozen birds in the vicinity. The fawn was still there, but seemed to be on the point of running away; why, Dave could not tell.
Not to let such a chance to bag tender meat escape him, the young pioneer took hasty aim and fired. The bullet sped true, and, with a convulsive leap into the air, the fawn fell into the shallow brook dead.
While the smoke was still pouring from his gunbarrel, Dave caught sight of a larger deer, previously hidden from view by some brushwood. Scarcely had he laid the fawn low when another gunshot rang out, and this deer also went down, kicking convulsively.
"Hullo, Sam and Henry must be near!" he thought, and ran forward to make certain that the second animal should not get away. At the same time he set up a shout, so that neither of the others might fire on him by mistake.
But the second shot bad been almost as true as the first, and by the time he came up the large deer was breathing its last.
"Hullo!" he shouted. "We must have spotted these deer at exactly the same time."
No answer came back to this call, and now Dave looked around with surprise.
If Henry and Barringford were near, why did they not show themselves?
"It's mighty queer," he muttered to himself. "If they—hullo! Hector
Bergerac!"