So he employed a ruse. He counted the agreed signal to fire, but instead of firing at the one lying down, he drew a bead on the doctor's, and, of course, killed it.
At the report of the guns the caribou on the ground sprang up, and old Bazil, with consummate prevarication, said, "Oh! I missed it!" Aimed again, let go the other barrel, and killed this one also.
The doctor was wild with delight at his successful first shot, and expressed in many words his pleasure to old Bazil, who took it all in without a blush.
The old guide, who was standing up back of where the doctor fired, had taken no chance of missing with his smooth bore, but fired point blank at the deer's fore quarters. There was found on examination a frightful wound, and smashed bone; but the doctor was not versed enough in woodcraft to distinguish if this had been caused by a round bullet, and not the conical one from his own rifle.
The doctor was not a pot-hunter; he had what he came for, and had got it in almost record time, and was satisfied, so he fished for brook trout while Bazil carefully prepared the head for transportation and dried the meat for his own family. Then they journeyed back to Roberval, where the men were paid off, Bazil receiving a bright $10 gold piece as promised over and above his wages.
The doctor no doubt has that head, beautifully gotten up, hanging over his sideboard, and points to it with pride to his guests, saying, "I killed that head back of Kis-ki-sink, in Canada."
CHAPTER XXIII.
A CASE OF NERVE.
In the far interior where flour is scarce and our living consists of either fish or flesh, both of which we have to get when we can and how we can, the game laws are a dead letter. Nets were always in the water the year round and no one moved from the posts without a gun. Fish and potatoes were our staple diet and were it not for the abundance of the former we could never have lived in the country. Lakes were all about us and when one was fished out we moved our nets to another.