Sam Hynes would go into ecstasies over a gift like that, and, as for his handsome sister, she—that is—well, he would take it home with him, anyhow.
Having made his lasso fast around the fawn’s fore shoulders, Oscar, with the lieutenant’s assistance, untied its legs and allowed it to spring to its feet.
It “bucked” beautifully for a while, and made the most desperate efforts to escape; but at last it became exhausted by its useless struggling and permitted its captor to lead it back to the place where the doe had been brought down by the shot from Oscar’s revolver.
She proved to be a very fine specimen, and the lieutenant, who had been in at the death of more than one antelope during the time he had been on the plains, assured the lucky hunter that he would see but few larger.
While they were examining their prize the colonel and the rest of the party appeared on the plateau; and, after looking at the boys through their field-glasses, one of them separated himself from his companions and began riding his horse in a circle at a full gallop.
“What is he doing that for?” asked Oscar, when he saw the lieutenant laugh and swing his hat about his head.
“I suppose he wants us to go there,” was the reply; “but he is giving the wrong signal. He is riding ‘Danger! get together at once.’ The first time I saw that signal, I tell you it made my hair stand right up on end. I was out on a scout with a small party, when one of our lookouts, who was so far away from us that we could hardly see him with the naked eye, began riding in a circle; and, by the time we were ready for action, we had ten times our number of Indians down with us. We can communicate with one another with our horses and our hands as easily as we could with signal-flags. If two or more columns of troops are marching through the same country out of sight of each other they raise smokes.”
The lieutenant went on to explain the different signals that were in vogue among the soldiers; and, by the time he had succeeded in making Oscar understand them, they reached the plateau where the colonel’s party was engaged in picking up the antelope that had fallen to their revolvers, and putting them into the wagon, which the teamster had brought up in obedience to a signal from his commander.
The officers were loud in their praises of Oscar’s skill, he having been the only one who was fortunate enough to capture any of the fawns alive, and they were both surprised and amused when they learned that one of his captives had been set at liberty “because it cried.”
Leaving the teamster and the Indian to pick up the rest of the game and to care for the captive fawn, the party, accompanied by the hounds, which were now to be allowed to share in the sport, rode away from the plateau from which all the herds had been driven by the noise of the chase, and set out to hunt up a suitable coursing-ground.