As he closed the stable door behind him two perspiring men with guns entered the yard from the corn-field, and were eagerly greeted by the dogs. "Good day," said one, politely. "We're after a big buck which our dogs here have run down for us. He must have hidden in your barn."
Ramsay eyed the visitors with ill disguised antagonism and fingered his scraggy chin before he answered.
"Ya-as," he drawled. "I've got a mighty fine buck in there—the old Ringwaak buck himself, as everybody's heard tell of. But, beggin' your pardon, friends, I reckon he's goin' to stay in there for the present."
The strangers studied the old man's strong face for a moment or two in silence, noted the latent fire in the depths of his eyes, and realized that there was nothing to be done. Whistling the dogs to heel, they strode off, angry and disgusted. But before they had gone far the one who had spoken turned around.
"I'll give you fifty dollars for those horns," he said abruptly.
"Ef they're wuth fifty dollars they're good enough for me to keep," drawled Ramsay, never moving from where he stood. And with resentful eyes he watched them out of sight before he went to the well.
During the next four days half the men and boys in the settlement, with not a few of the women, visited Ramsay's barn to view the famous captive. The buck, well fed and watered, had recovered himself in a few hours, and seemed none the worse for his adventure. All his former arrogance, too, had returned, and visitors were careful to keep at a safe distance. But Ramsay he recognized, apparently, as either protector or master, and Ramsay could enter the stall at any time. The buck would sidle off and eye him anxiously, but show no sign of the furious anger which the visitors excited.
To all inquiries as to what he would do with his captive Ramsay would answer, "Sell him to circus, maybe." But it was not till several weeks had passed and the settlement had got over its interest in the matter that he was able to quite make up his mind. Then, one crisp autumn morning, when the woods were all yellow and red, he went over to the next farm and asked his neighbour, a handy young farmer, to come and help him get the captive aboard a hay-wagon.
"Got a chance to sell him up to the Falls," he vouchsafed in brief explanation, and the explanation was one to content the whole settlement.
There was a strenuous hour or two before the indignant animal was roped and trussed into helplessness. Then the bruised and panting men hoisted the prisoner into the hay-wagon and tied him so he could not be bounced off; and Ramsay started on the rough twenty-five mile drive to the Falls.