across the mossy plain at whose edge they wandered, the stag at which he had fired made a bound and went off at full speed, leaving the lad with his heart beating and full of disappointment.
“No, Watty, a miss; I can’t shoot straight, and it’s of no use trying, I only waste the cartridges.”
“Got him?” came faintly from the distance, and, turning, Steve could see the doctor a couple of hundred yards away.
“No!” cried Steve gloomily; and then softly, “I can’t shoot;” and he watched the disappearing stag.
“Yes, yes, yes!” yelled Watty. “Hi—yi—yi—yi—ah!”
For just as the deer was going at full speed, and a few more bounds would have taken it round a point and out of sight, it dropped suddenly, the impetus at which it had been going sending it right over and over twice; then it lay motionless, and, re-loading as he went, Steve exultantly started after his prize.
“I told her sae; I kenned she’d het her by the way the beastie rinned. Shot recht through the hairt, laddie—recht through the hairt.”
“Mind, it may only be wounded, and these things are dangerous.”
“Nay, she’ll never rin again,” panted Watty, whom long inaction on board had made fat. “It was a bonnie lang shot, and ye ought to be verra proud.”
“But I’m not, Watty; it seems a shame and cowardly to crawl after a beautiful animal and murder it.”