“Look out!” Joe yelled. “He’s not dead! He may come at you!”
But Tom had his gun up, and at pointblank range, with his sights in full moonlight, he deliberately took aim, and fired again, at the lion’s heart.
The body gave a last kick, and fell on its side, stone dead, its blood slowly running out on the snow.
“He’ll never kill any more deer!” Tom cried.
They turned the lion over, and examined it. One bullet had hit him in the front leg, one in the jaw, shattering it, and entering its throat. But which shot was whose, nobody could say.
“I guess it was yours that got his head,” Tom declared, “’cause I was so sleepy I couldn’t see to sight.”
“My hands were so cold, I almost couldn’t pull the trigger, so it must have been yours,” Joe answered.
“After you, my dear Alphonse,” Tom laughed. “Anyhow, we both hit him, and that’s some shooting at a hundred feet, in the middle of the night, even if it is moonlight. We better get our snow-shoes on, and drag him home. Wonder if Mr. Mills will come, or stick it out at the other yard?”
“I bet he comes,” said Joe. “He must have heard us fire.”
They made an improvised sledge of a big, broken pine bough, to keep the body up on top of the snow, and were tying it on to this with their handkerchiefs knotted around the feet, when they heard a far call.