"He is safe now," said Harold; "we can kill him at our leisure. But keep your eye on the hole, and be ready to shoot, while I attend to this fawn."
When Harold took hold of the beautiful little creature, he discovered that the wounds were very slight. The ball had penetrated the back of the head and stunned it, without touching any vital part, and it was beginning to recover; the wounds made by the wildcat were only skin deep, and could easily be healed.
"Shall I bleed it for venison?" asked Harold, "or save it as a pet for Mary and Frank?"
"O, save it by all means," replied Robert, whose sympathies had been from the first excited by the piteous, childlike tones of the fawn. "Save it for sister, and let us make haste to finish this beast."
"Then lend me your handkerchief," said Harold; "mine alone is not sufficient for both collar and cord."
Robert approached him for the purpose, when he observed the cat creep slyly from his hole, and hobble away with all haste. "Quick, Harold," cried Robert, tossing him the handkerchief, "tie the fawn, and follow me," then dashed through the bushes in pursuit.
"Take care, you may get too near," Harold shouted; but Robert was already lost to sight behind the underwood. By the time the fawn was secured, Harold heard him hallooing about one hundred paces away, and going rapidly in that direction, saw him watching the convulsive throes of the wild creature as it lay gasping on the ground.
Harold looked on and pleasantly remarked, "You will soon get your name up for a hunter, if you keep improving at this rate. That is a splendid cat! What claws and teeth! Let us see how long he is." Putting his hands together at the thumbs, and spreading them out to span a foot, he ascertained that it measured two feet nine inches from the nose to the root of the short tail; and that, standing with its head erect, it must have been fully two and a half feet high. Its teeth and nails were savage looking things.
"I am glad he did not fasten those ugly looking things in my leg," said Robert; "but I was so excited by the pursuit, that I rushed at one time almost upon him. He had stopped behind a bush; all at once he sprang at me with a growl, showing his white teeth, bristling his hair, and glaring at me with his large fierce eyes. He dodged behind another bush, and when I next saw him he was gasping and convulsed as when you came up."
"It would have been a desperate fight, if he had seized you," remarked Harold; "you would have borne the marks to the end of your life."