Bud led to where he had seen the black buck disappear and Gramps looked once at the tracks.
"It's him," he said, "and danged if he hasn't outsmarted us. He figures he knows as much about snow as we do, and I reckon he's right. Anyhow, he's going back into the hills."
They began to climb, and the snow became deeper and the drifts more frequent. Two-thirds of the way up Hammerson's Hill, Gramps turned to Bud.
"Give me an hour and come through on the track."
After a timed sixty minutes, Bud went ahead, following the buck's tracks. Before long he found Gramps, who had made a wide circle, standing beside a huge boulder. The tracks of the black buck, who had slowed from a run to a walk, still led on.
"I thought he came through here and he did," Gramps said. "But he came maybe ten minutes 'fore I got here. Ha! He thinks he's outsmarted us by taking to the hills, but could be he's tricked himself."
"How has he tricked himself?" Bud asked.
"Longer shooting," Gramps explained to Bud. "If we find where he's dipped into a gully, we have a good chance of catching him going up the other side."
They followed the tracks until two hours before dark. Whenever they came too near for comfort, the black buck would run a little way, but most of the time he was satisfied to walk. Then they found that he had given a mighty leap a full twenty feet to one side of his line of travel and begun to run continuously. The tracks of four wild dogs came from the opposite direction and joined those of the black buck where he had veered off.
Not speaking to save his breath for speed, Gramps followed the tracks. It was almost dark when he and Bud came to a place where the tracks separated, with the wild dogs' going off in one direction and the buck's in another.