It was a splendid chance; nobody could ask for a better target; but do you think I could hold that rifle steady? Not a bit of it! Instead of one sight, I could see half a dozen; and finding that the longer I aimed the more I trembled, I at length pulled the trigger and chanced it. Where the bullet went I know not: somewhere southward; and so did the antelope, and at much the same pace, if I am any judge of speed.
"Never mind, old chap," said Dick, laughing. "That is liable to happen to anybody. Most people get a touch of the buck-fever the first time they try to shoot a wild animal. You'll probably find yourself all right the next chance you get."
"I'm afraid there's not likely to be a 'next chance,' is there?" I asked. "Won't that shot scare all the deer out of the country?"
"I hardly think so: the deer are almost never disturbed down here; it isn't like the Mosby side, where the prospectors are tramping over the hills all the time."
"Don't they ever come down here, then?"
"No, never. There is a common saying, as you know, perhaps, that 'gold is where you find it'; meaning that it may be anywhere—one place is as likely as another. But, all the same, the prospectors seem to think the chances are better among the granite and porphyry rocks on the other side, where the formation has been cracked and broken and heaved up on end by volcanic force. They never trouble to come down here, where any one can see at a glance that the deposits have never been disturbed since they were first laid down at the bottom of a great inlet of the ocean."
"I see what you mean: and as nobody ever comes down here the deer are not fidgety and suspicious as they would be if they were always being disturbed."
"That's it, exactly. They are so unused to the presence of human beings that I doubt if they would take any notice of your shot except to cock their ears and sniff at the breeze for a minute or two. Anyhow, we'll go ahead and find out. Let us go across this clearing and see if there isn't a spring on the other side. That antelope was drinking when we first saw him, if I'm not mistaken."
Sure enough, just before we entered the trees again, we came upon a pool of water around the softened rim of which were many tracks of animals.
"Hallo!" cried Dick. "Just look here! See the wolf tracks—any number of them. It must be a great wolf country as well as a great deer country—in fact, because it is a great deer country. I shouldn't like to be caught here in the winter with so many wolves about; they are unpleasant neighbors when food is scarce."