“It’s my ’pinion, sir,” remarked the guide, as he followed Frank up the ravine, the sheltered parts of which were covered with a few clumps of stunted pines—“it’s my ’pinion that we’ll have to cut our logs a long bit up the river, for there’s nothin’ fit to raise a fort with hereabouts.”
“True, Massan,” replied Frank, glancing from side to side, hunter fashion, as he walked swiftly over the broken ground; “there’s not a tree that I can see big enough to build a backwoods shanty with.”
“Well, master, ’twill do for firewood, if it’s fit for nothin’ else, and that’s a blessin’ that’s not always to be comed by everywhere. Let’s be thankful for small matters. I see sticks growin’ up them gullies that’ll do for stakes for the nets, an’ axe handles, an’ paddles, an’ spear shafts, an’—”
The honest guide’s enumeration of the various articles into which the small timber of the place might be converted was brought to a sudden pause by Frank, who laid his hand on his shoulder, and while he pointed with the butt of his rifle up the ravine, whispered, “Don’t you see anything else up yonder besides trees, Massan?”
The guide looked in the direction indicated, and by an expressive grunt showed that his eye had fallen on the object referred to by his companion. It was a deer which stood on an overhanging ledge of rock, high up the cliffs—so high that it might easily have been mistaken for a much smaller animal by less practised sportsmen. Below the shelf on which it stood was a yawning abyss, which rendered any attempt to get near the animal utterly hopeless.
“What a pity,” said Frank, as he crouched behind a projecting rock, “that it’s out of shot! It would take us an hour at least to get behind it, and there’s little chance, I fear, of its waiting for us.”
“No chance whatever,” replied Massan decidedly. “But he’s big enough to cover from where we stand.”
“To cover! Ay, truly, I could point straight at his heart easy enough—indeed I would think it but slight boasting to say I could cover his eye from this spot—but the bullet would refuse to go, Massan; it’s far beyond shot.”
“Try, sir, try,” exclaimed the guide quickly, for as they spoke the deer moved. “I’ve been huntin’ on the Rocky Mountains afore now, an’ I know that distance cheats you in sich places. It’s not so far as you think—”
He had scarcely finished speaking when Frank’s rifle poured forth its contents. The loud echoes of the crags reverberated as the smoke floated away to leeward. The next instant the deer sprang with one wild bound high into the air—over the cliff—and descending with lightning speed through the dark space, was dashed almost in pieces on the rocks below.