Jack Among the Indians; Or, A Boy's Summer on the Buffalo Plains

by George Bird Grinnell

"No indeed," said Jack, "I'd rather sleep in the open air, unless we're likely to have a storm."

"Well, let it go at that.

"Now, there's one thing we've got to do, and that is to keep a lot of picket pins on hand until these horses get wonted. I put a half dozen hard wood pins in the gunny sack in the mess box, but we'll be losing them right along, and I believe I'll go to work on an old lodge pole that's lying over here in the brush and make some pins for to-night. You might go out and get around them horses and start them back this way; they're working too far up the creek. Don't chase 'em or scare 'em; just go around 'em and drive 'em slowly until you get their heads turned this way. If you should see a buck antelope on the way, you might kill him, if you can, and we'll put him on one of the packs and take him along."

"I'd like to do that, Hugh, but there ain't much likelihood of seeing an antelope down in the bottom, is there?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Hugh; "you might see one; or you might jump a deer out of some of this brush. Don't kill a doe, though; she won't be no account to eat; and don't go too far, and mind you keep your eye out for signs. If you see any people, or sign of where people's been lately, get back to camp as quick as you can."

The horses had been feeding away from camp, and some of them were already hidden among the underbrush that grew in the valley. Jack walked over to the foot of the bluffs, and up the stream half a mile, and then, having got beyond the horses, he walked quietly toward them, turned them down the stream toward camp, followed them to the edge of the brush, and saw that they were now busily feeding in the right direction; then he turned about and walked up the stream.

He had not gone far when he saw in the sand at the edge of the creek the tracks of two deer, one set quite large, and the other rather small. He looked carefully about him in all directions but could see nothing, though the tracks seemed quite fresh. Keeping on up the stream, walking very quietly, stopping often to look all about him, he came to the edge of a little meadow, almost surrounded by bushes, and there, as he paused before stepping out of the brush, he saw near the other side, two deer.

Luckily for him, the gentle breeze was blowing down the stream, and so the deer did not smell him. When he first saw them their heads were down, and what first caught his eye was the rapid side-wise motion of the white tail of one of the animals. Almost as he stopped, the deer raised their heads, looked about for a moment, and then began to feed again. He could see that both of them had small horns, and yet one seemed quite a large deer. They were not far off, only about sixty yards, and Jack quietly dropped on his knee, slipped a cartridge into his gun, and made ready to fire. He hesitated a little, for both deer stood with their hips almost toward him, and he hoped that in a moment or two they might change their positions, so as to give him a broadside shot. Presently that very thing happened; the larger deer turned a little to the left, and then still more, so that its shoulder and side presented a fair mark. The next time that it raised its head and stood quite still, Jack drew a very fine bead on it, behind the shoulder and low down, and fired.

The deer leaped high into the air, and with two or three graceful bounds, disappeared into the underbrush, followed by its companion. "I wonder if I missed it," thought Jack; "it don't seem possible that I could have done that, for it was standing still, and I don't think I felt a particle nervous. I believe I'll go over there and try to follow their tracks a little way, anyhow."

When he had reached the place where the deer had been standing, their hoof-prints were plain in the soil, and following the direction they had gone, he saw other deep tracks, where they had made long leaps. He was so interested in following these tracks, that he almost forgot the question of whether he had missed or not, but suddenly, to his surprise, as he was puzzling out the tracks, he saw that the leaves of the brush, through which he was passing, were smeared with blood. "By jimminy!" thought Jack, "I did hit him! And now I wonder if I can find him." Looking carefully both for blood and tracks, he soon saw that the deer was bleeding freely, and that he need no longer look for tracks, since the blood on the underbrush and the grass and weeds was a constant guide to him. He had gone only forty or fifty yards, though to him it seemed much longer, when suddenly he stepped out of the brush at the foot of the bluffs, and saw, lying a few yards before him, the deer, dead on the grass. The other deer was standing nearby, looking back, as if puzzled, and Jack was strongly tempted to take a shot at it, but he reflected that one deer was more than they could use, and that it would be wasteful as well as cruel to kill a second.