No small game would do for them now. Birds might flush from the thickets and offer splendid pot shots; but they had agreed not to think of taking advantage of anything in the feathered line short of a big wild turkey. And, with so many mouths to feed, Sandy was more inclined to wish they might rout a buffalo out of some thicket, than anything else.
They advanced for some time, without seeing anything that offered a chance for a shot, and Sandy, of course, always impatient, began to think they might, after all, be compelled to return to the boat without any fresh meat, which would be a great pity, since every one yearned so for a feast.
The afternoon was now waning, and they found themselves some distance away from the place where the camp had been made. About this time Pat called the boys to him for a little consultation. He believed that, by altering their course, so as to come upon the river about two miles below the spot where their friends were tied up, the prospects for game would be vastly improved, because the country looked better to his eyes in that quarter.
So the change in direction was made. Bob was just as well satisfied, because he did not much like the idea of keeping on heading deeper and deeper into the great hills that lay back from the river, and which doubtless held more than one village of the hostile red men.
He noticed with some concern that it was even now beginning to grow a little dusk under the tall trees that lifted their lofty heads almost a full hundred feet in the air. And then, just when Bob was wondering if they were to arrive at the river, which could not be more than a quarter of a mile distant, without one single sign of game, he heard the well-known crash of Sandy’s gun away over to the left; because Pat carried one of those long-barrelled rifles, with the small bore, that took a patched bullet—one that was enclosed in a greased piece of linen—and made a sharp report entirely different from that of a musket.
Hurrying that way, he found Pat and Sandy bending over a noble young two-pronged buck that had jumped from a thicket where he had been lying, and fallen when the young Nimrod hastily let fly; for Sandy was a clever all-around shot.
Pat set to work, assisted by both the boys, to skin the game, and secure all the edible portions. These parts were made up into three packs, so that each might carry a share of the burden to camp, which was at least two miles distant.
Wondering whether the shot had reached the ears of their friends, and picturing their delight when they sighted all that fine fresh meat, the three were trudging along through the gathering darkness, when, without warning, Pat stumbled, having evidently caught his foot in some trailing vine which he had not seen.
Bob hastened to drop his own burden, and bend over to assist Pat to rise, for he saw that the other seemed to be having some difficulty about doing so. When he heard the trapper groan, Bob’s alarm increased.
“What has happened to you, Pat?” asked Sandy, who did not yet understand the cause of the delay, save that their companion had tripped.