“Never saw anything like that!” Alex muttered as he made his way through the bushes. “I never knew a deer could look a fellow in the face that way. I though they’d run away. Maybe she’s hurt.”
When they came up to where Clay lay in the thicket they found the deer only a few feet away, standing over something lying on the ground.
“Why doesn’t she run?” asked Case. “What kind of a deer is that? She must be foolish in the head most of the time.”
“Slang! You’ll wash dishes!” declared Alex.
“No slang about it,” reiterated Case. “That’s just plain talk.”
“Can’t you see what the trouble is?” asked Clay. “There is a young fawn there, caught in the briars, and the mother won’t leave it.”
“I can see it now!” Alex cried. “Pretty little thing!”
“That will make good eating, too,” Clay observed, turning his face away as he spoke. “Come, now, who’s going to shoot first? Better shoot to kill, for the deer may run away when she hears the report.”
Case and Alex looked at each other an instant and then sat down on the ground and watched Clay, who was still looking the other way.
“I don’t believe I want any venison,” Alex exclaimed.