Such careful, slow steps were certainly not accountable for the
rapid beat of my heart. Something gray moved among the green and yellow
leaves. I halted, and held Copple back. Then not twenty paces away I
descried what I thought was a fawn. It glided toward us without the
slightest sound. Suddenly, half emerging from some maple saplings, it
saw us and seemed stricken to stone. Not ten steps from me! Soft gray
hue, slender graceful neck and body, sleek small head with long ears,
and great dark distended eyes, wilder than any wild eyes I had ever
beheld. I saw it quiver all over. I was quivering too, but with emotion.
Copple whispered: "Yearlin' buck. Shoot!"
His whisper, low as it was, made the deer leap like a gray flash. Also
it broke the spell for me. "Year old buck!" I exclaimed, quite loud.
"Thought he was a fawn. But I couldn't have shot----"
A crash of brush interrupted me. Thump of hoofs, crack of branches--then
a big buck deer bounded onward into the thicket. I got one snap shot at
his fleeting blurred image and missed him. We ran ahead, but to no
avail.
"Four-point buck," said Copple. "He must have been standin' behind that
brush."
"Did you see his horns?" I gasped, incredulously.
"Sure. But he was runnin' some. Let's go down this slope where he
jumped.... Now will you look at that! Here's where he started after you
shot.
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