“One hundred and fifty pounds,” he said to himself, “if he weighs an ounce.”
He was just about to raise his rifle, when a dead branch snapped under him, and next moment the quarry had glided silently away.
“Anyhow,” thought Allan, “I’ll follow him up a little way. I’ve done a bit of this work at home, and he is a wary scamp, indeed, if he escapes me.”
He searched all through the piece of jungle first. This led him a goodly mile along the ravine, and into the forest, and he was about to give up the quest when he caught a glimpse of the animal’s white flag about a hundred yards away, but quickly getting farther off, though seeming in no great hurry. Keeping well under cover, Allan went on and on, determined if possible not to go back without a lordly haunch of venison on his shoulder. Before very long he found himself on the brink of a ravine. This puzzled him not a little. It was a ravine, but was it the ravine at the end of which he was sure to find his comrades? He did not care whether it was or not; he would cross and risk it, for yonder, on the opposite “brae,” were antlers; not one pair but many pairs.
So down he went, and, to his joy, found the stream was fordable.
Upwards now, with all the caution imaginable, crept this enthusiastic sportsman, upwards to where the all-unconscious herd were browsing. He was near them now, and was pushing the boughs aside to obtain a view, when, as ill luck would have it, a twig caught the trigger, the rifle went off, the deer stampeded, and poor Allan was left to mourn.
“Back homewards now, Allan,” a voice seemed to whisper to him. “Back, back; it isn’t the first time a deer has brought misfortune to the house of Arrandoon.”
Allan was a good mountaineer, and an excellent walker; he felt sure he could regain his party in an hour at most, but would daylight hold out as long? He feared it would not, and he knew it would get dark much sooner under the pine-trees, so he determined to follow the course of the stream. If it flowed at the bottom of the right ravine he was bound soon to rejoin his party. “Oh, of course it is the right ravine!” He found himself making this remark to himself a dozen times in a minute, as he commenced hurrying along the banks of the rivulet.
But now the shades of night began to fall, great black clouds rolled up and obscured the sky’s blue; there would neither be moon nor stars to guide him, so he increased his pace to as nearly a run as the rough nature of the ground would permit. But presently the trees got thicker and darker overhead, and he could no longer see the stream, and to advance farther were but madness.
He pauses now, and the dread of some coming evil falls like a shadow over his heart. In vain he shouts. There is no answer from the hills above; no answer from the dark woods. He fires his rifle again, it reverberates from rock to rock as if a volley had been fired. But the echo is the only response.