Fearful that he would shift his position the next instant, Jim discharged both barrels in quick succession.
The report was yet ringing through the woods when a rasping howl rose on the air that made the blood of every one tingle.
“I didn’t know that deer let out such cries as that when they were shot,” muttered Jim, lowering his gun and walking forward, “but I s’pose I sent both charges through his heart—great Jewhilakens!”
He had suddenly awakened to the fact that instead of shooting the buck he had sent both charges into the body of the hound, just as he was in the act of leaping at the throat of his victim.
The inevitable consequence of this blunder was that Hero lay stretched on the ground as dead as Julius Cæsar.
CHAPTER XXIV—SUSPICIOUS FOOTPRINTS
“You blunderhead!” called Bob Budd, forgetting his own peril in his anger, “you’ve killed Hero. I hope the buck will gore you to death.”
The triumphant animal seemed to be on the point of doing so, for he stood with head raised, his brown sides rising and falling like a pair of bellows from his severe exertion, looking at the young man that had fired the shot which ended the hunting career of Hero, as if debating with himself how best to end his hunting career.
It would be putting it mildly to say that Jim McGovern was dumbfounded. He was transfixed for an instant, and then, awaking to his own peril, he whirled about, threw down his gun, and dashed for the tree behind which he was standing a minute before.
Throwing both arms and legs around the trunk, as though it were a long lost brother, he began climbing fast and furiously.