While all this was taking place Tad Butler and Stacy Brown were standing beside their horses close to the canebrake. They too heard the barking of the dogs, and realized that the game was getting farther and farther away.
Suddenly Tad heard what he thought was the sound of a breaking twig off to the north of them.
"Chunky," he whispered, "you stay here and watch the horses while I make a scout. I believe that bear has given them the slip and has come over into the brake here. Don't make a sound. I will be back pretty soon."
"How long?"
"Half an hour at the most."
Stacy nodded. Tad tethered his horse, then taking his rifle from the saddle boot stole silently away. Stacy lost sight of him in a few minutes. Butler, proceeding as quietly as an Indian, had crossed the next cane ridge and had gotten nearly over a narrow stretch of swamp when he heard a sound in the cane just ahead of him. Tad crouched down and listened. Not a sound save that of the birds of the forest did he now hear. He had waited in that position for some time, when he heard something strike the ground in the canebrake just beyond him.
The boy straightened up. A flash of red and a crashing of the cane told him that his ears had not deceived him.
With characteristic quickness, Tad threw up his rifle and fired. A crash woke the echoes of the forest, stilling the songs of the birds in the trees. Then followed another crash.
"I got him that time. It's a deer," exulted the Pony Rider Boy. He did not pause to think that his had been a remarkable shot, or that he had fired while the deer was still in the air, making a leap for safety. The animal had caught sight of him as he rose to his feet, then leaped. Alarmed by the haying of the dogs, the deer had fled in Tad's direction, and perhaps it had halted because of the scent of the boy himself. At any rate Tad Butler's shot had been sure. His bullet had caught the animal just back of the shoulder, dropping the deer dead in its tracks.
Butler started on a run, crashing through the bushes and into the dense cane, and there lay the deer, a handsome doe. The young hunter felt regretful as he gazed down at the fallen animal.