“Listen to me,” he said, trying to speak impressively. “We may have crept up on the game at the same time; but I chanced to shoot first. My arrow struck there, and entered the animal’s heart. That was a fatal wound. The beast had almost come to a full stop, and was staggering, ready to drop, when I heard your bowstring twang. Besides, your arrow entered in the body; and, as it was, without any other hurt, the elk would have run far before dropping. You know that as well as I do. And so it is my game.”
“Ugh! better not try keep elk!” grunted the other, while his fingers were seen to twitch as he gripped his bow; but he had not taken time to fit another arrow after letting loose, and so the white boy had a decided advantage over him, which those restless black eyes had not failed to note.
“Now, I’ll tell you what I’d be willing to do, because I know how hard it is to go through all that work of creeping up, and then lose the game. I’ve proved that my arrow killed the elk; but I’m willing to go halves with you! How does that suit?”
When Roger said this he knew Dick was coming, and that, as he undoubtedly would be holding his rifle ready in his hands, he could make quick use of it should the necessity arise. So that it was certainly not fear that induced him to offer to hand over half of the game to the rival claimant.
But apparently the dark-faced man was not the kind to appreciate such generosity. With him it was a matter of all, or none. He knew well that by rights he had no sort of claim to the game, but hoped to bully the boy into abandoning his just claims.
“My game!” he replied doggedly; “see first, and shoot before same fall. What business you have here in hunting land of Shoshones? If I tell chief, Running Antelope, he soon find, and have scalp hanging in wigwam!”
“Oh! I guess not,” remarked Roger, thinking that it might be best to let this other, who must be friendly with the hostile Indians, believe that he and Dick were only the forerunners of a large party; “for my friends would come up in numbers, and burn the village of Running Antelope, if he so much as injured a hair on my head. But here is my hunter companion; let us see what he says.”
When the half-breed turned his head, and saw what a well-armed fellow Dick was, as well as noted the look on his face, he drew back a step, as though realizing that his absurd claim on the quarry would never have a ghost of a show at making good. If one white boy could not be browbeaten, there was little chance that he could bully a pair of them.
“What’s all this about, Roger?” asked Dick, as he jumped from his horse, rifle in hand, and pressed the weapon of his cousin into the other’s willing hands; for, after all, a gun felt much better than a bow, when there was need for action.
“Settle this matter, Dick,” observed the young hunter, eagerly. “I shot first, and you can see my arrow sticking just back of the shoulder. It must have reached a vital place, for the beast was just staggering, ready to fall, when I heard his bowstring sound—and you can see where he struck. That elk would have run one or two miles with a hurt through the body like this; because we have seen deer do the same. Am I right, Dick?”