"I suppose it is," said Hugh, "and I reckon if you were to take a hundred white men out of the same church, and were to ask each one of them just exactly what his beliefs are, you would find that no two of the hundred would exactly agree."
They sat for a little while looking at the fire, and then Hugh said, "Well, son, we've had a pretty long day and I reckon it's about time to go to bed."
"That will suit me," said Jack, and they turned into their blankets.
CHAPTER XII
PROSPECTING FOR FUR
It was not yet light next morning when Jack was awakened by a dull tapping, not often repeated, and as his senses grew clearer it seemed to him that the sound was like that made by an animal stamping its hoof on the ground. He crept silently out of his blankets, felt about for his cartridge belt and gun, and when he had found both, crept to the door. He had hardly got there when he heard again, more faintly, a stamping of a hoof, and then a snort which he knew was made by a deer.
Meantime, Hugh had awakened, and, raised on his elbow, was watching Jack. The light was still so faint that objects could hardly be distinguished, but gradually, as the eastern sky began to flush and the light crept up toward zenith, Jack made out a deer standing fifty or sixty yards away, and looking at the tent, and then heard rather than saw it stamp its foot. Two or three times he put his rifle to his shoulder and glanced along the barrel, but he could not yet see his fore sight. Two or three times the deer stepped forward a little way, and then stopped and again stamped. Evidently the tent, shining white in the dim light of the morning, puzzled her, and she was trying to make out what it was. She had never seen anything like this before. As the light grew, Jack could see that it was a small doe, probably a yearling, and just the meat they needed. At length he put his gun to his shoulder again and found that he could see the sights, though not very clearly, and drawing a coarse sight and aiming low down at the brisket of the animal, which stood facing him, he pulled the trigger. The deer sprang in the air, and then turning, ran swiftly toward the brush and disappeared.
"Get it?" asked Hugh, as Jack moved back on his bed and began to put on his trousers and shoes.