The Hunters of the Ozark

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

"How are yees, me friends?" and made a dash for them.

In his enthusiasm he forgot the brook running through a small hollow between them. His feet went down in the depression without any knowledge on his part, and he sprawled headlong, his cap rolling at the feet of Deerfoot, who pushed the toe of his moccasin under the edge, and flung it to him as he rose to his feet.

"It's all the same, and a part of the show," laughed Terry, "as the wife of the bear-keeper obsarved when the bear ate him up, and it's how are ye, and how do ye ixpect to be, and what have ye to say for yersilf, and why are ye so long answerin' me quistion?"

Deerfoot simply smiled, and made no reply until Terry had replaced his cap, and was done with his noisy greeting. Then he pointed to his gun leaning against the tree, and said:

"When my brother is in the woods, he should keep his gun within reach of his arm."

"Yer moral sentiments are corrict," remarked Terry, hurrying back—this time without falling—to regain his piece. When he once more stood beside the laughing Fred, the Shawanoe addressed both:

"Are the guns of my brothers loaded?"

Both felt the rebuke; they had violated one of the elementary rules of the hunter's life, which is that the first thing to be done after discharging a weapon is to reload it. Fred flushed, for he did not remember that he had ever forgotten it before.

"It was a piece of forgetfulness of which Terry and I ought to be ashamed, but it was the first time we had ever had a fight with such a beast as that: what do you call it, Deerfoot?"

The Shawanoe shook his head to signify that he knew of no distinct name for the animal, but he explained to the boys, what they already knew, that it was a cross of some kind, concentrating in itself, as it seemed, all the power, activity, daring and ferocity of the most dreaded animals of the woods. Deerfoot could not deny that his shot had saved the boys from being torn to shreds by the brute. Had it been a few seconds later, or differently aimed, nothing could have saved them from its fury.