“Give us your hands, youngsters,” continued Dick. “Shoot me if you hain’t done somethin’ that I tried all last winter to do an’ couldn’t. If I shot at that buck onct, I shot at him twenty times. Do you see that scar on his flank? I made that. An’ there’s another on his neck. When I hit him there I thought I had him sure; for he war throwed in his tracks, an’ when Useless come up to grab him, he war up an’ off like a shot. If you war with some trappers I know, they would tell you to cut that rope an’ let him get away from here as fast as he could travel. Some fellers think these yere white deer have got the Evil One in ’em.”
“O, that’s all nonsense,” said Frank; “a white deer isn’t a bit different from any other, only in the color.”
“That’s what I used to tell ’em,” said Dick. “But this yere is my day’s work,” he added, lifting the otter-skins from the ground; “and a good one it is, too. But five mile back the woods are full of otter, an’ a little further on is a beaver-dam—eight houses in it—forty beaver at the least kalkerlation.”
As the trapper finished speaking, he shouldered his rifle and led the way into the cabin, where a fire was soon started, and some choice pieces of venison, which had been brought in by him were laid on the coals to broil. In a few moments, George and Archie entered, and the latter inquired:
“Who caught that white buck?”
Frank gave him the desired information, and also related their adventure with the wolves; when Archie continued:
“I’m glad you caught him, for you always wanted one for your museum. We came near catching a black fox for you.”
“A black fox!” repeated the trapper.
“Yes; the largest one I ever saw,” said George. “He’s black as a coal—hasn’t got a white hair on him, except the very tip of his tail.”
“I know him,” answered the trapper. “Him an’ Useless had more’n one race last winter. You found his trail down by that little creek that runs through that deep hollow.”