That is the first question when you get home, and a negative answer implies defeat. Unless you get something, be prepared for the I-thought-as-much expression when your friend sympathizes with you. An incentive and a temptation it is—some of the worst of us and some of the best of us have nearly fallen (nearly, I say) and offered gold to a small boy with the basket which was full of fish when ours was empty. And the game laws—there, in truth, is where sportsmanship at times is forced into tight corners!
We had hunted deer for two solid, leg-wearying days. But the woods were very dry, and the deer heard us long before we saw them, except for a doe or two, uncannily aware of the safety of their sex. On the morrow we hit the homeward trail, and were disconsolate at the prospect of a venisonless return.
Crackle!
Something moved in the thicket below me. Another stir and the "something" resolved itself into a deer. Up came the light carbine—the weapon par excellence for saddle trips—while I sighted across seventy yards of sunshine at the brown beast moving gracefully about, nipping at hanging moss and oblivious of danger.
But the carbine did not speak. Conscience and familiarity with the game laws battled for some thirty seconds with inclination and desire for venison. Then conscience won, and the doe continued her dainty feeding, undisturbed.
In days gone by, our copy-book mottoes told us that "Virtue is its own reward." As a general thing such automatic recompense is unsatisfactory, so when really first-class examples of more tangible returns for virtue arise, they deserve recording. And this was one of them. For no sooner had I formed the good resolve, and acted on it, venison or no venison, than there came another soft crack-crackle of dry twigs, and a second brown animal appeared.
Bang!
The first shot hit just abaft the shoulder and the fine buck lay dead before he knew his plight.
And if that was not immediate reward for virtue, I defy explanation!
