CHAPTER XVIII.
RABBIT HUNTING.
Standing amid the clustered alders which lined the banks of anice-bound stream that flowed through a little valley, Rodney Grantlistened with a tingling thrill to the musical baying of a houndrunning a rabbit. Rouser had struck a scent, and now, after circlingsome distance into the deeper woods, the sound of his voice, growingmore and more distinct, indicated that he was coming back. Holding LemSawyer’s gun ready for use, Rod changed his position somewhat, in orderto get a better view through a little break or opening in the alders.The snow crunched softly beneath his feet, and a few light, featheryflakes, dislodged as he brushed against the bushes, floated down aroundhim. A chickadee, undisturbed by the baying of the dog or the presenceof the boy near at hand, performed some amazing evolutions amid thebranches a few feet away, keeping up the while a constant friendlychatter in a ludicrously hoarse and husky tone. Up the bank behind Rod,some distance to the right, the snow crunched a little and a darkfigure appeared at the edge of the spruces.
“’St! ’st!” came a double hiss of warning. “Watch out, Grant! He’scoming! He’s coming! You may see him first.”
It was Spotty, who had sought a more favorable position, only to be ledback that way by the baying of the dog. Lander had gone still fartherup stream.
Hearing the hound coming in full tongue, Rod did not even turn hishead, but crouched a bit to peer through the opening down which thedog’s voice floated from the shadowy woods beyond the stream. His eyeswere keen for the first glimpse of the running rabbit, and his fingerwas ready for the trigger.
_Whit-ker-whit—whirr!_
Spotty, moving again, had sent a partridge out from beneath the shelterof some low-hanging evergreens. With a gasp, he swung half round andblazed away, almost blindly, at the flitting bird, which went soaringover the alders toward the cover of the dense woods beyond the stream.He knew he had missed, even as he fired.
Grant, straightening up as if jerked by an electric shock, saw thebrown bird flash against a bit of gray sky. There was no time to bringthe butt of the gun to his shoulder. He fired, seemingly without takingaim, and the partridge crashed down through the alders, falling with a“plump” to the snow.
“Get him—did you get him?” palpitated Spotty.
“I reckon I did,” answered the young Texan coolly, stooping to peerthrough the bushes and perceiving the bunch of brown feathers that layso still some distance away.
But the rabbit was still coming, if the approaching staccato of thehound was to be accepted as positive evidence, and Rod, satisfied thatthe partridge would remain where it had dropped, again turned hisattention to the business from which it had been temporarily distracted.
“By, jinks!” muttered Spotty. “I guess he can shoot, all right.”
Over in the woods beyond, the fleeing rabbit had stopped short at thecrashing report of the gun, sitting straight up on its haunches for afleeting moment, its whole body aquiver with terror. Only for a momentdid it linger. The clamoring dog on its track was coming, filling thewhole woods with a racket which plainly told that the scent was rapidlygrowing warm. Ahead silence had followed that double burst of terriblesound, but behind was the relentless pursuer, who was making the forestring. The hunted thing seemed to know where the crossing of the streamcould most easily be made, and beyond the stream, up the bank, were thethick firs and the deep, sheltering shadows.
On it came once more, with great bounds, long ears flattened back. Grayalmost as the snow itself, it leaped forth into the little opening.
This time the butt of the gun in Rodney Grant’s hands was pressed tohis shoulder for an instant. The left barrel belched smoke, and therabbit, shot-riddled in the midst of a leap, was practically dead whenit struck the snow.
“Get him—did you get him?” yelled Spotty once more.
“I sure did,” laughed Grant, breaking down the gun to eject the emptyshells. Blowing through the barrels, he slipped in fresh cartridges,snapped the gun together, pushed through the bushes to pick up thepartridge, and had almost reached the rabbit when Rouser came bellowingforth from the woods to stop in surprise and sniff around the furry,blood-stained body.
“Say, you’re a holy terror!” spluttered Davis, as he came crunching andcrashing through the alders. “You can shoot some, can’t you?”
“It’s a cinch with a shotgun,” laughed Rod. “I’ve always done most ofmy shooting with a rifle.”
“Don’t believe Bunk thought that rabbit would circle back this way,”confessed Davis. “If he had, he wouldn’t have gone up-stream. He’ll becoming pretty soon, now that Rouser’s quit talking after that shooting.We had better go meet him.”
Already the dog was sniffing around in the bushes for a fresh scent.Spotty called the animal, and they pushed up-stream, soon discoveringLander approaching.
“Get anything?” asked Bunk.
“I didn’t,” acknowledged Spotty. “I put up a biddy, but I missed her.Rod brought her down, though, and he got that rabbit, too.”
His gun tucked under his arm, Lander looked at the partridge and therabbit in evident surprise.
“Great luck,” he commented, with an evident shade of chagrin. “Goodwork for a greenhorn. Sometimes it happens that way; the feller who’sgreen gets all the chances.”
“Greenhorn!” snickered Spotty. “You should see him shoot. Here, Rouser,come back here! Come back, sir!”
The old dog had been slipping away into the woods, but he returned atthe command.
“Well, we’ll have our stew all right,” said Lander. “That’s aconsolation for us, Spot.”
They moved on, Bunk leading and directing the dog. After a time anothertrack was picked up, and again Rouser went baying off into the woods.
“We’ll wait a while and see which way he turns,” said Bunk, who hopedto pick the lucky location for himself this time.
“Hark! What’s that?” cried Davis suddenly, as the distant report of agun drifted to their ears.
“Somebody else out for rabs, I guess,” growled Lander. “Yes, there’stheir dog. Listen!”
Another hound, much farther away than Rouser, was heard giving voice.
“Bet the feller that fired made a miss,” grinned Spotty. “It takes oldDeadeye Grant from Texas to bring ’em down.”
With his ear cocked, Lander listened. After a time he said:
“This is a good place, Grant. You stay here. Spot, you can go fartherup this time. I’m going to cross over.”
Watching them hurry away, Grant said nothing, although he knew Bunk wastrying to secure for himself the chance of the next shot.
For some moments after they vanished his keen ears heard an occasionaldistant sound, like the cracking of branches or the rustling of bodiespushing through thickets; but this gradually died out, and somethinglike a lonely hush settled over the winter woods. He could still hearthe distant baying of the dogs, but this seemed even to accentuate thestillness in his immediate vicinity.
“I reckon it was more by accident than anything else, that Rouserturned the rabbit back my way before,” muttered the lad from Texas,“and I don’t judge it will happen again. If I stay here I won’t getanother shot. Bunk and Spotty count on doing the rest of the shootingthemselves. By the sound, I should say Rouser will be over in the nexttownship before he stops.”
The inactivity swiftly became irksome to him, and finally, with guntucked under his arm and game bag containing the rabbit and partridgeslung from his shoulder, he set forth, guided by the barking of thedogs. At times he was forced to stoop to make his way through the low,scrubby growth, and once he paused to tie a red silk handkerchief abouthis neck, down which the snow had an uncomfortable way of sifting fromthe overhanging bushes which he disturbed as he pushed along. He madeno attempt to follow either Lander or Davis, but finally, to hissatisfaction, the sound of the dogs grew more and more distinct, and hecame to a swamp growth where rabbit tracks and paths were plentiful
.This swamp covered an extensive territory, and in its depth the houndsseemed to be pursuing the twisting, turning, circling game.
“I’ll bet something that both Bunk and Spotty are here somewhere,”laughed Rod softly. “They tried to leave me picketed over yonder wherethere wasn’t a show for me to do a whole lot of shooting. Perhaps theythink I’ve done enough already.”
“Whoo!” came a hoarse shout, which sounded almost in Rod’s ear andcaused him to give a ludicrously startled jump. Ere he could recoverand shoot, a fluffy gray thing shot out of the shadows at one side andwas gone into the still deeper shadows of another thicket.
“An owl,” muttered Grant, with a short laugh and a feeling offoolishness over his alarm. “He was sitting right there on the brokenbranch of that old dead stub. Owls aren’t good to eat, but, mounted, hewould have made a good trophy for my room.”
Still, with the sound of the dogs drawing nearer, he spent little timein regretting the escape of the owl. Once the hounds were so close thathe stood half crouching, peering into the shadows of the swamp, fullyexpecting to see the hunted rabbit come bounding forth into view; butsuddenly the baying swept away to one side and passed on to the north,denoting that the furry fugitive had made a turn in the effort tobaffle the clamoring animals that would give him no rest.
“It’s right plain he’s sticking to this swamp tract,” thought Rod, “andso I judge he’ll come round this way again if some one doesn’t pop himover.”
He moved on a few rods, found a spot that seemed favorable, placedhimself with a tree at his back, and continued to wait, as motionlessand rigid as the tree itself.
It was quite warm down here in the swamp, where no breath of airstirred. If other living creatures there were in the immediate vicinityof the young hunter, it appeared that they were also hypnotized intostony silence by the baying of the dogs, now drawing near, nowreceding, growing faint, becoming plainer again, and finally seemingswiftly to approach.
“If I get this fellow, too, I’ll sure have the laugh on Bunk andSpotty,” whispered Rod, holding his gun ready to clap it instantly tohis shoulder.
The dogs came straight on. Unless they changed their course soon, theymust certainly pass within easy shooting distance. The wild,blood-thrilling music of their voices made the whole swamp ring. Oncethe waiting lad fancied he heard a slight crashing off at the left,but, thinking it might be Lander or Davis approaching, he did not turnhis eyes in that direction. Now it seemed that the passing of anysecond might bring the hounds into view. Beyond question they wereclose upon the rabbit, and——
Up went Rod’s gun. His eye caught the sights, his finger pressed thetrigger. Following the report of the piece, the smoke, drifting slowlyupward on the heavy air, unveiled the rabbit kicking in its last throesupon the blood-stained snow.
“Another!” exulted Rodney Grant, as, ere advancing, he extracted theempty shell and slipped a fresh one into the gun.
A black-and-tan dog flashed into view, reached the slain rabbit andnearly lost its footing in the attempt to stop promptly.
“You’re pretty lively for an old dog, Rouser,” chuckled Rod. “Youcertainly seem to have amazing good wind.”
But, still baying frantically, another dog was coming, and within tenfeet of the rabbit Grant stood still, uttering an exclamation ofsurprise, his eyes fixed on the hound that was yet sniffing around thedead game.
“It’s not Rouser!” he muttered. “It’s——”
“What in blazes do you mean by shooting a rabbit ahead of my dog?”cried a voice.
Rod twisted the upper part of his body round and gazed over hisshoulder at two lads with guns who were hurriedly approaching onsnowshoes.
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