“RUNNING IN THE SHALLOW WATER TO COVER HIS SCENT”
The buck set off in a straight line for the river, now perhaps a half-mile distant. Reaching it, he turned down the shore, running in the shallow water to cover his scent. It never occurred to him that his enemy was trailing him by sight, not by scent; so he followed the same tactics he would have employed had the pursuer been a wolf or a dog. A hundred yards further on he rounded a sharp bend of the stream. Here he took to deep water, swam swiftly to the opposite shore, and vanished into the thick woods.
Two or three minutes later the man came out upon the river’s edge. The direction his quarry had taken was plainly visible by the splashes of water on the rocks, and he smiled grimly at the precaution which the animal had taken to cover his secret. But when he reached the point where the buck had taken to deep water the smile faded. He stopped, leaning on his gun and staring across the river, and a baffled look came over his face. Realizing, after a few moments, that he was beaten in this 203 game, he drew out his charge of buckshot, reloaded his gun with small duckshot, and hid himself in a waterside covert of young willows, in the hope that a flock of mallard or teal might presently come by.