He chatted cheerfully until eleven o'clock before showing any signs of sleepiness. This was about all the game I cared to kill, so I asked Pease to go into the station and get a team to come out and take my meat in. In order to pass the forenoon pleasantly, I took my rifle and started into the woods again. I went at once to the buck I had killed, reaching the carcass shortly after sunrise. I cut down a jack pine, and, trimming off the boughs, made a bed. Then I laid down, took out a book and commenced to read, while waiting for the team and for any deer that might happen along.
But I had not read half a dozen lines when I heard a slight rustling and cracking in the frozen snow, and, looking in the direction of the noise, I saw a young spike buck walking slowly and deliberately down the hill not a hundred yards away. I caught up my express and made a snap shot at him, but in my haste and surprise missed him clear. At the report he stopped, threw up his head and presented a beautiful picture, as well as a fair, easy target.
"Now, my lad," I said to myself, "you are my meat sure."
I was so confident of success this time that I scarcely took any aim at all. Again I scored an inglorious miss and the deer started away on a series of long, high bounds. I threw in another cartridge, held ahead of him, and as he struck the ground the second time I pulled for the third time. Then there was a circus of a kind that a hunter rarely sees. The buck fell to bucking, bleating, and kicking. His hind feet would go into the air like a couple of arrows and with such force that they would snap like a whip cracker. Then he would rear on his hind feet and paw the air; then jump sidewise and backward. He threw himself twice in his gyrations, and each time was on his feet again almost before I could realize that he had gone down. This gymnastic exhibition lasted perhaps two or three minutes, during which time I was so paralyzed with laughter that I could not have shot within six feet of him if I had tried. Besides, I wanted to see the performance out. Finally the bucker recovered his wits and skipped out. I followed and found that he was discharging blood at such a rate that he could not go far. He went into a large thicket. I jumped him three times before I could get a fair shot at him, and could hear him wheeze every time I came near him. Finally I saw him lying a few yards away, but his head was still up and I sent a bullet through his neck. On examination I found that my first shot had cut the point of his breastbone off and had ruptured both his oesophagus and trachea. I dragged him out and laid him by the side of the big buck, and when Pease came in with the team an hour later he said:
"Well, I'll be dad blasted if he hain't got another one."
I shall always remember that hunt as one of the pleasantest of my life, considering the length of time it occupied.
CHAPTER XXX.
COWBOY LIFE.