chapter 11
Leaves crisp with frost rustled beneath Bud's pacs as he strode onthrough the woods. His shotgun was half raised, but his mind was not onthe grouse that, any moment now, might rocket up from the copse of brushhe was approaching.
He sighed. It had been a busy summer and not entirely a good one. Therehad been a good crop of young chickens, but a mysterious malady hadkilled a third of them. Neither he nor Gramps had been able to discoverwhat it was. Gramps thought the trouble was that the White Wyandotteswere less hardy than crossbreeds. Bud was sure Gramps was mistaken,although none of his books gave a clue as to what was wrong. More keenlythan ever, Bud felt his lack of knowledge and the need to acquire more.
During the spring and summer he had not worried much about hunting forthe black buck. Autumn and the deer season had seemed very far awaythen. But now the season was here, and Gramps' anticipation mounteddaily.
Since school had reopened, Gramps had made as intensive a study of theblack buck and his habits as he had of Old Yellowfoot and his. At leastthree times a week and sometimes more often, Gramps went into Bennett'sWoods to observe the buck. By now, Gramps knew the buck's favoritehaunts, his drinking places, when he liked to rest and when he foraged.Twice Gramps had been within rifle shot, by which the old man concludedthat the black buck was not as cunning as Old Yellowfoot. Still, theblack buck would be no easy game, and he had an even bigger rack thanOld Yellowfoot's at its best. To hang that rack on the living-room wallwould be the crowning achievement of Gramps' career as a hunter andfisherman. Between them, Gramps had made up his mind, he and Bud wouldhang it there.
It occurred to Bud there in the autumn woods that if Gramps became illagain, he wouldn't be able to go on hunting the black buck. Bud stillfelt that a bond existed between him and the black buck, that hisdestiny and the buck's hung on the same thread, so that Bud's goodfortune in being at Bennett's Farm would end if anything happened to thebuck. But Bud realized at once that he would rather face the end of thebuck and of his own happiness than another of Gramps' attacks.
Just as he came to that conclusion, the grouse rose in a thunder ofwings. Bud raised his gun and knew as he shot that the bird he wasaiming at was out of range. Then he heard Gramps' gun boom twice and sawtwo grouse plummet into the leaves.
"Dreaming today?" Gramps called. "As Pete Henderson said to his boy,Ben, 'I've taught you all I know and you still don't know nothing.' Thatwas as neat a straightaway shot as I ever saw."
"I wasn't ready."
"We'll teach a few grouse to wait until you are," Gramps said. "I swearto gosh, Bud, you act like you got a girl on your mind."
Gramps went forward to pick up his grouse. He held them by the legs andtheir mottled plumage rippled in the faint breeze. Gramps, who had seenhalf a thousand grouse, looked for a moment at these two as though theywere the first. Then he walked to and sat down on a mossy log.
"Guess I'm getting old," he remarked. "I doubt if I'll be huntingBennett's Woods more than another forty or fifty years."
Bud said nothing as Gramps laid his grouse carefully in the leavesbeside the log and ejected the two spent shells from his double-barreledtwelve shotgun. The limit for grouse was four, but Gramps believed thattwo was enough for any hunter.
After they had sat together on the log for a while, Gramps said, "I ranacross Old Yellowfoot day before yesterday and all he's got this year istwo spikes. I swear he knows it, too, and that spikes ain't legal. Stoodno more than twenty yards away, chewing his cud like any old cow andhardly giving me a second look. He'll be safe unless one of thosetrigger-happy hunters who'll shoot at anything runs across him, and Idoubt if one of those can find him. He hasn't lost his brains just'cause the rest of him started downhill."
"He's earned his right to peace."
"'Peace' is a word with a lot of stretch, Bud. Take people now. Someget it one way and some another, and some never get it. HeinrichUmberdehoven can't have any peace 'thout he's working, because only whenhe's working is there any hope of earning another dollar or two. RudyBursin, he don't have any peace unless he's loafing, and he'd rather beknown as the Haleyville town bum than work. Sammy Toller never gets anypeace and I don't know why unless it's 'cause he's always deviled bynotions. When his sheep petered out, he figured to go in for cattlefeeding. If that don't work, he'll try something else. If it does, he'llbe fretted trying to make it bigger and better. Old Yellowfoot mighthave peace if by that you mean he's safe from hunters. But I think he'drather be hunted."
"Why?"
"He's old, and the way he lives it ain't nice to get old. His bones willache, he'll feel the cold, he'll have a rough time finding enough to eatin winter, and by and by he'll just naturally lay down and die. It won'tbe because he has to, but because his life will not be worth living anymore. While he was being hunted he was in his prime, and he never gave adarn anyhow because he knew he could get away from any hunter. He did itfor a good many years, and I think he got as much fun out of foolinghunters as they did out of hunting him."
For the first time it occurred to Bud that hunting could be a two-waystreet and that the hunted sometimes took as keen a delight in eludingtheir pursuers as the hunters in pursuing. "It makes sense," he saidafter he had thought it over.
"It is sense," Gramps said, "'less you get some poor little scared thingtoo young to know what it's all about, and those you oughtn't to huntanyhow. But I'm sort of glad we didn't get Old Yellowfoot."
"Why?"
"He had the biggest rack I ever saw and I figured it'd be the biggest Iever would see. But the black buck beats him, and it ain't right for oneperson to kill two big deer. One's a trophy but two's hoggishness. Ifyou get the buck you want, and the black buck is the one I want, leavethe next big one for somebody else."
A fuzzy caterpillar, driven by some unseasonal urge, started crawling upthe log on which they were sitting. Gramps pointed at the caterpillar,which was black at both ends and brown between.
"We're in for some early bad weather," he said.
"How do you know?" Bud asked.
"The longest black's on the fore end of that caterpillar, and thatalways means the fore end of the winter will be long and hard."
Bud pondered this piece of information. Gramps' lore had proved valid sooften in the past that Bud knew better than to dismiss what the old manwas saying about caterpillars as so much local superstition. Shortlyafter Bud had come to the farm, Gramps had told him that, when swallowsflew near the ground, a storm was in the making. Bud hadn't taken muchstock in that until he learned in school that the low-pressure area thatprecedes a storm drives insects down near the earth and so the swallowsfollow them. Therefore, when swallows fly close to the ground, a stormdoes usually follow.
"You aim to get yourself a couple of grouse?" Gramps asked.
"I don't think so," Bud said.
"Something is chewing on you," Gramps said. "What is it?"
"Nothing," Bud said, turning his face away because he could not look atGramps and tell an untruth.
"You ain't going to stop hunting?" Gramps asked.
"Two grouse are plenty for the three of us."
"I hope you don't feel like hanging fire when we go after the blackbuck."
"I'll hunt him with you," Bud promised.
"Then we'll get him." Gramps seemed relieved. "Well, let's mosey homeand see how Mother's doing."
* * * * *
In his first free period the following Monday, Bud sat in theprincipal's outer office at Haleyville High School. After five minutesMr. Thorne's secretary told him to go in. Bud, who had always been atease with Mr. Thorne, was nervous.
"I'd like permission to be excused from school for as much of the deerseason as necessary, sir," he said stiffly.
"Want to get yourself a buck, eh?"
"Well, partly."
"Do you think that hunting is more important than your academic career?"
"No, sir."
"Then what is it?"
"There's a
big buck in Bennett's Woods," Bud blurted out. "Gramps--Mr.Bennett, that is--has always dreamed of killing just such a deer. It'ssort of like a dream he's always had. Gramps had been sick and he isn'texactly young. No one can be sure he'll be able to hunt next deerseason. He has to get the black buck this year. He thinks I can helphim."
"In other words you want to stay out of school for an indefinite periodto help Delbert Bennett get this buck. Well, I think it can bearranged." Then, before Bud could thank him, Mr. Thorne went on. "Infact, I think it will be a very important part of your education. Youmay not see what I mean now, but maybe you will later."
Gramps, who was splitting wood when Bud got home that afternoon, yelled"Hallelujah!" when he heard the good news and threw a stick of firewoodin the air. "The black buck's as good as ours," he said.
* * * * *
Not long afterward the school bus was crawling up the highway behind thesnowplow that was clearing four inches of new snow that had added itselfto the four inches that had fallen yesterday. Bud was staring out thewindow, almost oblivious to Goethe Shakespeare Umberdehoven who satbeside him as usual. He saw little since wind-blown sheets of snowobscured everything more than twenty yards from the highway, but he wasthinking of the caterpillar that had crawled up the log when Grampsscored his double on grouse. Bud had been a little skeptical when Grampshad predicted a harsh, early winter from the caterpillar's markings, butnow it looked as if they were in for the earliest and harshest winter inten years.
When Get Umberdehoven asked if he was going deer hunting, Bud said"Yeah" without turning away from the window.
"You don't seem so excited about it."
"Why don't I?" Bud snapped.
"Always before when deer season came you couldn't hardly sit still. Nowyou act like you'd rather not go."
"Oh shut up!" Bud said. Then, feeling remorseful, he turned to face Get."Are you going deer hunting?"
"Everybody goes the first day and we got to get a deer because if wedo"--Bud waited for what he knew was coming next--"we can sell anotherpig."
"I'm going to stay out and hunt for as long as I want to," Bud saidloftily. "I'll hunt the whole season if I feel like it."
"I wish I could," Get said. "School, it's hard for me. But if I don'tgo, I fall behind, and if I fall behind . . ." He shrugged eloquently.
Bud thought of Mr. Thorne's saying that he thought it would be a veryimportant part of Bud's education to hunt the black buck, but he stillhad no idea what Mr. Thorne really meant. There were a lot of things hedid not understand, Bud decided as the bus stopped in front of theBennetts' driveway.
"Good luck," he said to Get to make up for having snapped at him.
"Yeah," Get said listlessly.
Bud left the bus and made his way through the eight inches of fluffysnow that blanketed the driveway. The snow was loose and easy to plowthrough. But still it would either keep the more timid hunters out ofthe woods entirely or make them concentrate in the fringe areas so thatthere would be fewer hunters in the deep woods.
Shep came to meet him as Bud stomped the snow from his overshoes andtook them off on the porch, and for a moment Bud wished he could changeplaces with Shep, who wasn't allowed to go out into the deer woodsduring the season. Then he opened the door and went into the kitchen.
A heavenly smell from the loaves of freshly baked bread that Gram wastumbling out of baking pans filled every corner of the kitchen andoverflowed into the nearby rooms. Gramps sat at the table fussing withsome minor adjustment of his deer rifle.
"All set, Bud?" he said, grinning.
"All set."
"Good. Tomorrow we get on his tail! Give us four days together, justfour days, and you and me'll tag that black buck."
Gram said, "Oh, Delbert. You'd think that buck was more important thanthe President of the United States."
"Right now, and as far as I'm concerned, he is, Mother. 'Sides, who'dwant the President's head hanging on his setting-room wall?"
Gram appealed to Bud. "That's all he's been talking about, just thatblack buck. And if he's been over his rifle once today, he's been overit a hundred times."
"Got to have it right, Mother," Gramps said. "We'll get one chance andno more. If we miss when the chance comes, we'll have only ourselves toblame."
"After all this fuss and bother you'd just better get him," Gram saiddryly. "There'll be no living with you the rest of the winter if youdon't. I'd give you a slice of butter bread, Allan, except that it'sstill too hot."
"I'm not hungry," Bud said. "I'll change my clothes and do the chores."
"I'll give you a hand," Gramps offered.
"No, you stay right here."
Bud went to his room, glad to escape. If only a miracle would occur. Ifonly the snow would melt and the leaves would appear and deer seasonwould be over with the black buck still in Bennett's Woods. There wouldbe no miracle, Bud knew. There was just one thing he could do if theblack buck came in range--shoot straight. Gramps wanted the head to hangin the living room and Bud would do his best to see that it hung there.It made no difference whether he or Bud shot the buck, since they wouldbe working as a team.
Bud lingered at the chores, and for one of the very few times since hehad come to live with the Bennetts, he had almost no appetite forsupper. Gram looked at him with concern, but Gramps was too excited tonotice.
"He won't be in the hills, Bud, with this snow," Gramps was saying. "Heand all the other deer with sense, which means all the other deer, willbe down in the valley swamps and thickets. If this snow deepens, and Ithink it will, the deer will yard in for another week or ten days. Doyou know where we'll find that black buck?"
"Where?" Bud tried to inject enthusiasm into his voice.
"Hagen's Flat or Dockerty's Swamp," Gramps said. "I'm putting my moneyon Dockerty's Swamp. Not in twenty years have I put a buck out of therethat I wanted to shoot, but I never lost the feeling that that's wheremy real luck lies. Yep, we'll find the black buck in Dockerty's Swamp."
The next morning, fortified with one of Gram's substantial breakfasts,and each with one of her ample lunches in his hunting jacket, Gramps andBud left the house with Gram's warning not to overdo ringing in theirears. Bud glanced at Shep, whose feelings were hurt because he was tiedup so he couldn't follow them into the woods.
The day grew lighter slowly and from far off came an occasional rifleshot or volley of shots as hunters began to encounter deer. Bud had beenright the day before in thinking that the snow would keep most of thehunters in easily accessible areas, for most of the shooting was goingon near the main highway. There were almost no shots from the deepwoods but, as Gramps had predicted, that was where the deer were.
First they saw a herd of fourteen does and fawns that had been drivendown from the hills by the stormy weather. Then there was a buck, a tenpoint with a very respectable rack of antlers. Either Gramps or Budcould have shot him before he glided out of sight in a rhododendronthicket. Next they saw a herd of nine in which there were two bucks.
They parted at Dockerty's Swamp. Gramps went down to track through theswamp while Bud took his stand on a knoll up which any deer driven fromthe swamp would be sure to run. The snow had stopped falling, but heavyclouds lingered in the sky and it would begin again. Now and then Budsaw a deer flitting across one of the few open spaces in Dockerty'sSwamp, and he knew that the swamp must be almost overrun by deer seekinga refuge from the snow. But no deer came up the slope and before long itwas clear that they preferred to take their chance in the swamp ratherthan to go back into the hills.
Bud had been at his stand a little less than an hour when he saw a deerrunning easily in the open country at the far edge of the swamp. Even ifit had not been black, Bud would have known from its mighty rack ofantlers that it was the black buck.
Bud raced down the slope, stopping to whistle when he reached the edgeof the swamp. Then, receiving no answer, he went a short distance intothe swamp and whistled again. This time there was a reply, and Bud foundGramp
s leaning against a dead stub.
"What in tunket are you doing?" he said angrily. "You should know betterthan to leave a deer stand."
"He went out the other side!" Bud said.
"The black buck?"
"Yes!"
"Come on!"
Bud led to where he had seen the black buck disappear and Gramps lookedonce at the tracks.
"It's him," he said, "and danged if he hasn't outsmarted us. He figureshe knows as much about snow as we do, and I reckon he's right. Anyhow,he's going back into the hills."
They began to climb, and the snow became deeper and the drifts morefrequent. Two-thirds of the way up Hammerson's Hill, Gramps turned toBud.
"Give me an hour and come through on the track."
After a timed sixty minutes, Bud went ahead, following the buck'stracks. Before long he found Gramps, who had made a wide circle,standing beside a huge boulder. The tracks of the black buck, who hadslowed from a run to a walk, still led on.
"I thought he came through here and he did," Gramps said. "But he camemaybe ten minutes 'fore I got here. Ha! He thinks he's outsmarted us bytaking to the hills, but could be he's tricked himself."
"How has he tricked himself?" Bud asked.
"Longer shooting," Gramps explained to Bud. "If we find where he'sdipped into a gully, we have a good chance of catching him going up theother side."
They followed the tracks until two hours before dark. Whenever they cametoo near for comfort, the black buck would run a little way, but most ofthe time he was satisfied to walk. Then they found that he had given amighty leap a full twenty feet to one side of his line of travel andbegun to run continuously. The tracks of four wild dogs came from theopposite direction and joined those of the black buck where he hadveered off.
Not speaking to save his breath for speed, Gramps followed the tracks.It was almost dark when he and Bud came to a place where the tracksseparated, with the wild dogs' going off in one direction and the buck'sin another.
"They smelled us coming and kited off," Gramps said. "But they'll beback.
"We'll start earlier tomorrow, Bud," the old man said as they turned togo home.
chapter 12
The next morning, when Gramps and Bud returned to the black buck'strack, the light was too dim for shooting and even for adequatetracking. A brisk little wind sent snow devils whirling before it, andthe wind had blown most of the night, reducing the sharply imprintedtracks the black buck had left the day before to shallow depressions inthe snow. The clouds were darker than yesterday and snow drifted downfrom them and mingled with the snow devils.
The valley below them looked as black as though it was still midnightthere, and above it, where Gramps and Bud were standing, the snow glowedweirdly in the pale light. Bud shivered, but he was grateful, too, forthe very elements seemed to have conspired to save the fleeing blackbuck. Even Gramps couldn't hope to win against such odds as these.
Bud grew more and more uneasy as he stood there helplessly, not knowingwhat to do. Gramps seemed baffled, too, reluctant either to go on or toturn back. The old man raised his rifle, sighted at the black trunk of abirch tree about fifty yards away and then lowered his rifleuncertainly.
"He could be thirty yards away and the size of an elephant, and I stillcouldn't get my sights on him," Gramps said quietly. "That's what comesof selling a wise old buck short. He knew what he was doing when he cameinto the hills. He figured we were after him down in the swamp and wassure of it when we got on his tail. But he also knew there'd be moresnow and he counted on it to cover his tracks."
"He's wise, all right," Bud said with secret elation. Yesterday he hadseen nothing except doom for the black buck. But the buck had a wildwisdom all his own, and thanks to that and to the falling snow, he hadescaped his pursuers. If his tracks were covered up by the snow, hemight still live to reign once more in Bennett's Woods.
"We'll have to do our best anyhow," Gramps said. "If that pack finds himfirst, what's left won't be worth our carrying home."
Gramps' words were like an electric shock to Bud. He had thought of thepack and its pursuit of the buck, but it had not occurred to him thatthe wild dogs were competing with him and Gramps on equal terms. At thethought of the black buck as a piece of meat that happened to be chargedwith life, a prize contested for by Gramps and a pack of wild dogs, Budcould hardly keep from retching. He felt as if he had been swept back tothe grim, loveless world he had known before he had come to theBennetts'.
"I think you're right," Bud finally managed to answer.
"Let's get moving, then," Gramps said, and started off in thesemidarkness with Bud behind him.
The buck had continued to run, twenty feet to the leap, even after thedogs had finally left his tracks the afternoon before. But the snow hadshifted so much during the night that the places where he had landedwere now so vaguely defined that Gramps and Bud's pace was agonizinglyslow. They must go faster than this, Bud thought as he reached down fora handful of snow to cool his burning mouth. If it would mean the end ofhis good fortune if Gramps killed the buck, it would be even worse ifthe wild dogs killed him, for then Gramps' dream would be destroyed,too.
Restraining an impulse to rush past Gramps and find the black buck in aburst of speed, Bud began to watch Gramps and he grew less desperate ashe saw the old man in action. The sullen light was too dim to see fromone set of the black buck's tracks to the next, but Gramps never failedto know in which direction the buck had leaped. Gramps seemed to bethinking not as Delbert Bennett but as the black buck himself.
Perhaps the black buck enjoyed matching wits with hunters just as OldYellowfoot seemed to, perhaps because he, too, was sure he could escapethem. But wild dogs were different. The black buck had never run as faror as wildly with Gramps and Bud following him as he had even after thewild pack had stopped following. Plainly he knew what wild dogs could doand he was terrified.
The night lifted so slowly that its rise was almost imperceptible, andwhen dawn finally came, the clouds remained so dark that it did not seemto be day at all. But when he sighted on a tree about three hundredyards away and could see a knothole over the sights, Bud knew there wasat least shooting light.
They were about a mile and a half from where they had returned to trackthe black buck. Where the tracks dipped into a gully whose only growthwas wind-whipped aspens, the buck had slowed from a frantic run to afast walk. Now that they were closer together and the light wasstronger, the tracks were easier to follow. They turned straight up thegully toward the top of the hill.
Gramps halted and Bud stopped behind him without speaking. Bud'sdesperate urge to hurry was gone, for by now he knew better than to tryto do in haste what had to be done slowly. Gramps had performed amiracle in bringing them this far, and Bud realized that such mastery ofthe wilds was the result of love for wild places and wild things as wellas skill and the desire to conquer.
Then Gramps spoke, "He knows nothing's on his track any more and hethinks he's safe for a while. He's heading toward that patch of hemlockson top of the hill because he's been pushed hard and needs a rest, andhe can rest safely there. He's working back in the direction of the farmbecause there'll be more snow and he might have to get out of the hillsin a hurry; he can do it by going down any of those deep gullys. But heknows those critters as well as I do, and he's going to be a mightyspooky buck until he's shaken that pack. He never was much afraid of us.But he's afraid of them."
"Will the dogs be back?" Bud's voice shook.
Gramps said grimly, "If they don't come, it's the first pack ever got ongame and left it. They can't have that buck. I've marked him. Come on."
Leaving the tracks of the black buck, Gramps went straight across thegully, fought halfway through a thigh-deep drift and halted. Bud lookedup in alarm, but there wasn't the terrible wheezing and the anguishedfight for breath that there had been when Gramps suffered his attacks.His face was streaked with perspiration but its color was normal.
He had only stopped to rest, and after a
moment he broke through thedrift and quartered up the slope. Bud felt uneasily that he ought to betaking his turn breaking trail, but he knew better than to offer. It wasGramps' hunt and the buck was Gramps' prize. And only Gramps knew whatto do.
It was hard to imagine these hills as they were in the full bloom ofsummer, when anxious does hovered there near spotted fawns hidden inthickets and summer-sluggish bucks, their antlers velvet-sheathed, movedout of the way as placidly as grazing cattle. In the summer, too, grouseand wild turkeys brought their downy young to feed there.
Now in the stormy depths of winter the hills looked like a desert ofsnow, although not all the wild life had fled. Cottontail rabbitshuddled in their burrows and snowshoe hares crept about in the thickets.No doubt foxes and weasels were sheltering there from the storm andprobably a few grouse and turkeys were still on the hills, too. But noteven the track of a mouse could be seen on the virgin snow.
Bud glanced toward the valley and could see only a part of the way downthe slope through the falling snow. There was life in abundance downthere and for a moment he wished he were out of these hills where thereseemed to be nothing but snow and a grim determination to end the blackbuck's life.
After Gramps had stopped to rest two more times, they broke over thecrest of the hill. They traveled faster now, for although the snow wasas deep as ever, the going was downhill. It was like coming out of thedesert into an oasis when a grove of hemlocks loomed ahead. The hemlockswere partly covered with snow but their green needles were visible.They looked like Christmas trees decorated with great puffs of cotton.
Gramps entered the hemlocks very slowly, with his rifle half raised, andBud almost hoped they would find the black buck in the grove and put anend to this almost unbearable uncertainty. But all they found, deep inthe hemlocks, was a bed in which the weary buck had finally lain down.Apparently he had left it shortly before Gramps and Bud had returned tofollowing his tracks that morning, for very little snow covered thetracks leading away.
When they came to the bed, Gramps stopped and said to Bud, "He's goingto have himself a feed of beech nuts. Then he'll mosey down the hilltopto see if anything is on his trail. If he finds nothing, pretty soonhe'll go back to the valley. He's afraid of this snow."
They came to a grove of gray-trunked beech trees so massive that theyseemed impregnable to the wind and storm. Gramps and Bud were still ahundred yards away when they saw a pile of leaves freshly pawed throughthe snow and knew that the buck had been scraping for beech nuts. Thesetiny nuts came down like hail when the first frost opened their greenpods, and there had been a great harvest of them that year.
Swiftly Gramps approached the place where the buck had been pawing, forthe giant beech trees were widely separated and there was no brush toobscure the view. If the black buck was in the grove, they would seehim. When they came to the scraped leaves, Gramps stopped again.
From where he stood the tracks of the wild dogs could be seen leadingout of the beech grove and joining those of the black buck.
Gramps made a sound that was half a gasp and half a growl, and withoutlooking back, began to move with giant strides along the mingled tracks.Bud hung back for a second. He had hunted and fished with Grampshundreds of times, but he had never seen him react this way. UsuallyGramps approached his quarry eagerly, but with a kind of reverence, too.Now Gramps seemed to have become a ferocious killer for whom the gamewas no longer a sport. Bud could only follow Gramps numbly, but itseemed to him that it had only become a question of whether Gramps orthe wild dogs would kill the black buck first.
The buck was again making great leaps as the pack coursed him. Bud didnot dare talk to Gramps, but he knew that no deer could maintain such afurious pace for long. And the longer-winded wild dogs could go onindefinitely.
Two miles after the pack had taken up the chase again, Gramps and Budcame upon the place where the dogs had first caught up with theirquarry, and the trampled snow made it easy to reconstruct the scene.Pressed to his limit, the black buck had backed his haunches against atangled windfall and waited with lowered antlers as the pack came on.The dogs had rushed and feinted, hoping to draw the buck out and makehim expose his vulnerable flanks and hocks.
"Look!" Bud said, when he saw a patch of blood thinly covered by newsnow.
"That ain't the black buck's blood," Gramps said. "If it was he neverwould have got out of here alive. He's hooked one of the dogs. They'renot as anxious as they were."
It was true, Bud decided as he and Gramps raced on. The buck was stillrunning hard, but he was no longer taking the same mighty leaps. Nodoubt that was partly because he was tired, but he had also taught thepack to respect him. Although they could have closed in on him, they hadheld off for another two and a half miles.
Then, on the rim of a shallow gully, the dogs had come forward with adetermined rush. But the buck had backed up against three small treeswhose trunks formed a triangle and held them off. There was no bloodhere, but when the buck had left, his leaps had been very short.
"He ain't going much farther," Gramps said grimly. "And he'll try to getback into the valleys where the snow ain't as deep. Come on. Hagen'sFlat's the place he'll head for."
Gramps left the trail to quarter down the slope. Bud followed, not surewhether this was the right tactic, but not daring to question it. Grampsled them back down the snowy lifeless slope, and they ran on and onuntil Bud was sure they would run out of this world and into the next.When they came to the near side of a valley that sloped downward, theysaw the black buck at bay across the valley.
This time there was no shelter for his haunches, and his feet were nolonger nimble as the pack rushed him. The dogs were as big as wolves anddetermined to kill their quarry without getting hurt themselves. Two ofthe four wild dogs lunged at the black buck's haunches. But when hewhirled around to confront them, they danced away and the other two dogsrushed in.
Bud was looking on frozen with horror when the sudden, sharp crack ofGramps' rifle startled him out of his trance. It was too far for anymarksman who had been running, and he missed. The dogs turned to run andGramps shot again, missing this time, too.
For a short time the black buck stayed where he was. Then he turned togo on, but his steps were very slow and very tired. He stumbled andalmost fell. When he came to a drift so deep that the snow reached hisshoulders, he stopped, too exhausted to move. He gave no sign of fearwhen Gramps and Bud came up to him. There was a serenity and a dignityabout him, as if, having done his best and fought his hardest, he coulddo no more and was prepared for whatever he had to face.
As he looked at the buck there in the snowdrift, Bud thought of thatsummer day so long ago when the black buck had been a tiny fawn in hisarms. The fawn had given Bud the courage to face life during those firstdays at Bennett's Farm and now what Bud had learned then was reconfirmedin the grown buck's quiet resignation to whatever fate had in store forhim. Bud knew that he could fondle the buck now if he wanted to. Thebuck had no strength left to resist and his great antlers were asuseless as those on the mounted head in the Bennetts' living room.
Then there was a click as Gramps slipped the catch of his rifle fromsafe to fire. Gramps had his prize. The black buck was less than twoyards away from him, and he couldn't miss. Bud waited for a shot, butnone came.
"Kite down to the barn and fetch the toboggan and a good strong hank ofrope, Bud," Gramps said finally. "I'll wait here and see if thosecritters come back. I hope they do. But even if they don't, now that weknow where they are, we'll get 'em on this snow."
* * * * *
Outside the wind howled and the snow swept down. But the kitchen stoveradiated warmth to every corner of the room. It even seemed to warm hisheart, Bud thought, although he knew that couldn't be.
"You're sure he'll be all right?" he asked Gramps.
"Dead sure," Gramps said. "He couldn't even wiggle when we tied him onthe toboggan, but he'll be full of beans in a few days. Time deer seasonends, he'll have enough hay and grain
in him so he'll be able to makehis way back into Bennett's Woods." Gramps chuckled. "You 'n' me willjust open that box stall and watch him kite out."
"Aren't you sorry?" Bud asked.
"Heck no," Gramps said. "He'll carry a bigger rack than ever next year,and it'll be bigger still the year after."
=Transcriber's Notes:=hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the originalPage 97, horses in the barn ==> horses in the barn.Page 182/183, a threat ening forefoot ==> a threatening forefootPage 190, Gramps asked ==> Gramps asked.
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