They crossed a brook, and when they reached the opposite side there was a rustling of undergrowth. The lads cocked their rifles and the buck jumped to its feet and stood facing them.
“Shoot!” cried Ben.
The boys brought up their rifles at the same instant, but George was the first to pull trigger. His bullet went straight through the heart, and the buck dropped dead.
Ben ran forward and cut its throat with his hunting-knife. He complimented the lads on their good shooting, and said they must have been practising before they came to the woods. Ed told him he had a rifle-range in the cellar of his home, and said that George and he had engaged in many contests.
The guide showed them how to cut a slit in the flesh of the deer’s hind legs and insert a stout stick from one leg to the other to spread them apart. He called it a gambrel and briefly explained its use. Then, with their assistance, he raised the carcass by aid of poles. The deer once swung up, Ben quickly cut it open and removed its entrails. He put aside the liver, which he promised to cook for breakfast.
He would have skinned the buck, but twilight was fast gathering, and they must choose a suitable camp-site and build some sort of a shelter for the night. Therefore he decided to leave the deer hung up until daylight, when he could remove the hide and quarter the carcass.
They washed in the clear, cold water of a little stream. Then Ben began his search for a camping-place. At last he found a spot to his liking on top of a pine-clad knoll. He led the boys to it, and bade them slip their packs.
Ben looked around until he found two trees growing on a parallel line, about six feet apart. He cut a pole about an inch wider than the space between their trunks. After cutting some notches in the pole’s upper side, he placed it between the trees and drove it down until it became securely wedged about six feet from the ground. Next he cut and trimmed two logs, each about eight feet long and some five inches through. He placed them on the ground, one extending back from the base of each tree.
At his order the boys had cut some long straight poles, about two inches in diameter. They were placed against the notched ridge-pole between the trees, the end of each pole fitting nicely into the notch cut to hold it, and the lower end resting on the ground some eight or ten feet back.
They had the roof, sides, and door of the lean-to completed, and were ready to go on with the “shingling,” under Ben’s directions. He bade them cut many armfuls of balsam and hemlock branches. These he dexterously wove between the roof-poles until he had made a thick covering, or mat, over their little shelter. Then he placed small trees and branches against the sides.