“I can’t see—”
Turning her about and pointing over his shoulder, he said, “See! Just beyond that great boulder, something white.”
“It is!” she exclaimed. “A mountain goat! Oh, Johnny, can we?”
“We can, or my name is not Johnny Longbow.”
Vision of a feast of wild goat’s steak done to a turn floated before his eyes. In his excitement he quite forgot that they had no wood.
Carefully they prepared their attack. He would climb the narrow ledge to the right and come out above the goat. She would work round to the left and station herself among the rocks prepared to cut off his retreat up a narrow run.
For a half hour after that Johnny climbed from rock to rock until, with a deep intake of breath, he bent his bow, nocked his arrow, then of a sudden stood up.
His heart went wild as he saw the goat not fifty yards away. As he stood there hope, despair and high resolve fought for first place in his soul. The result was a bad shot. Or was it? He could not tell. All he knew was that the nimble beast leaped high in air, then went racing away.
A second arrow followed the first. On such slopes, among such rocks, there could be no hope of recovering an arrow.
Sitting limply down upon a rock, the boy watched the great bobbing horns disappear from sight.