In the fall, when the first snows drifted down through the valleys of Virginia, the settlers always held shooting matches, where the best shots of the country competed for prizes, usually some wild turkeys that had been trapped alive. And more than a few times Sandy had held his own with the celebrated sharpshooters among the buckskin-clad hunters from the trails. No eye was quicker than his to glance along the shiny barrel of a musket; and when he pulled the trigger his lead usually found its mark, even though the target were but the ever moving head of a turkey, whose body was hidden in the ground, fully an hundred yards distant from the marksman.
Once more the two boys pushed on. Before five minutes passed Bob noticed something that gave him a little concern. He had caught sight of the first snowflake that came scurrying along on the wings of the rising wind. A little thing in itself, but which might mean a tremendous lot to these boys, miles away from home, and surrounded by a trackless forest. In another five minutes, just as he had feared, the snow was beginning to descend heavily, so that his task of following the trail of the deer promised to come to a speedy end, as the ground began to be covered with a white mantle.
There was only one thing that could be done now, if they meant to pursue the hunt any further. Bob of late had been noting the general direction taken by the deer; and they could keep pushing on, each pair of eyes on the alert for signs of the expected quarry.
Now it became necessary to bring to the fore all the knowledge of woodcraft the boys possessed. They must judge at a glance just how a deer would proceed while pushing through the forest, avoiding such dense thickets as promised to entangle his antlers, and at the same time seeking shelter from possible enemies.
Suddenly Bob came to a stop, and whispered:
"Look ahead to where that pawpaw jungle ends! Something moved there; and blest if I don't think it must be our game!"
Even as he finished speaking, out of the screening hedge leaped a gallant buck, his head thrown back, and every muscle in his frame answering to his fear of human kind.
It was a pretty sight, and one calculated to make the blood bound more quickly through the veins of a hunter; but neither of the boys delayed even one second in order to admire the scene. Their one thought was of the possibility of their eagerly anticipated supply of meat making off on its own rapidly flying hoofs.
Sandy was a bit the quicker in firing, for, being nervous by nature, he knew how to aim more by instinct than by going through a set habit. Still, the two discharges seemed to roll into one; and, with their hearts in their mouths, the young marksmen looked to ascertain what the result of the shots might be.
"Huzza! he is down!" almost shrieked Sandy, as the big buck made a tremendous bound into the air, and came crashing upon the snow-covered earth, where he tried in vain to regain his feet.