"You can think as you please about it," retorted the other, angrily. "I know, though, that I am not going to submit to being treated like a child by my own brother just because he happens to be a few years older than I am."
"Very well," replied the chief of party, calmly; "unless you will promise implicit obedience to any order I may see fit to issue for the welfare of the party, I shall disarm you, at the same time forbidding you to borrow any other rifle or go upon any sort of a hunting expedition until you do promise what I ask."
"I certainly sha'n't promise to obey any order so foolish as the one in question, and if you choose to play the tyrant, why, you can, that's all. Only remember, if anything unpleasant happens in consequence, the fault will be wholly yours." Thus saying, the lad flung himself out of the tent in which this unhappy interview had taken place, and strode angrily away.
So the boy's cherished rifle was taken from him, and, filled with mingled rage, mortification, and repentance, he passed a very unhappy night. Although impatient and quick-tempered, he was not of a sullen disposition, nor one who could long cherish anger. He was manly enough to acknowledge to himself that he was wholly in the wrong, but was too proud, or rather too cowardly—which is what so-called pride generally means—to confess his fault to his brother and ask his forgiveness.
In vain did Mortimer Chalmers gaze wistfully at his younger brother on the following morning, and long for a reconciliation. As for himself, he could not weaken his authority by showing partiality toward any one member of his party, and must be even more strict with Todd than with the others because of the relationship between them. Thus his position forbade his making the first friendly advances, and when the younger brother, assuming a careless cheerfulness that he did not feel, pointedly avoided him, the other turned to his own duties with a heavy heart.
In the early afternoon of that day, when the leader was riding at some distance in advance of his party, a small herd of black-tailed deer, alarmed by the echoes behind them, suddenly sprang from a small side cañon or ravine, halted abruptly on the edge of the bottom-land, gazed for a moment in startled terror at the strange beings not fifty yards from them, and then dashed madly back into the place whence they had come.
"Give me a shot—quick!" cried Todd to his nearest neighbor, and snatching the other's rifle as he spoke, he fired wildly at the retreating animals. Then clapping spars to his pony, he bounded after them in hot pursuit.
CHAPTER II.
TODD'S PONY BRINGS BACK THE NEWS.
Carried away by the enthusiasm and excitement of the moment, Todd did not in the least realize what he was doing, or remember that he was disobeying his brother's clearly expressed orders. He only knew that the first deer he had ever seen alive and in their native haunts were scampering away from him, and that it seemed just then as though nothing in the world could compare in importance with getting one of them.