CHAPTER I
AFTER FRESH VENISON
"SHALL we give it up for to-day, Sandy?"
"But the afternoon is only half spent, Bob, and we have had such poorluck hunting."
"Just so; but it might have been worse. Two hickory-fed squirrels and aplump 'possum make a fair bag after such a hard winter."
"Not so very much where there are five mouths to fill. Oh! Bob, if onlywe _could_ get the deer that made these tracks! I'm tired of jerkedvenison." (Note 1.)[A]
Robert Armstrong, sixteen years of age, looked down upon the groundwhere the trail of the deer was well defined, and evidently he, too,felt some of the eagerness that possessed his more impulsive brother.
It was the days previous to the Revolution. Around the two youthsstretched the great primeval Virginia wilderness, sparsely settled,and hedged in by the chain of Alleghany Mountains, beyond which only afew venturesome spirits had ever dared journey; and some of these boldpioneers had never come back to tell the tale of their discoveries andexploits.
The two boys had started from their cabin home, just outside a smallVirginia town, determined to secure fresh food for the family, at thattime facing unusual privation.
Alexander, or Sandy, as he was always called, the impetuous one,seldom looked any distance ahead, so that it was Robert who many timesfound himself compelled to pull his younger brother out of seriousdifficulties.
Still, both lads, having been born and reared on the Virginia frontier,were really older through experience than their years would indicate.
In those strenuous days of pioneering, boys had to learn how to takecare of themselves very soon after they began to walk. Their daily lifebrought them in touch with the perils of the wilderness. They weretaught how to handle a gun at five years of age, and the tracks madeby all wild animals soon became as plain to them as the pages of aprinted book to a scholar.
Sandy, seeing his more cautious brother hesitate, renewed his pleading.
"We need this deer very much, Bob," he went on, eagerly. "Since fatherlost his place with old Jason Diggett, things have gone hard with us athome. Mother tries to smile and cheer us up, but every door has beenshut against poor father since that tobacco barn burned down, and hewas accused of setting fire to it."
"Yes," said the other, a frown crossing his young face as thoughpainful memories had been stirred up by his brother's words, "but theywere not able to prove anything against father, and we know that hecould never have done such a thing."
"But the deer," continued Sandy, persistently; "why not try for it?Perhaps it may be feeding close by, in some glade where the trees havesheltered the grass, or where there are tender twigs to be nipped off.Say yes, Bob, and let us start right away."
The older boy cast a quick look upward, and his gaze rested longest inthe quarter where the forest wall was broken, allowing a view of thegray sky.
"The air is raw, and I'm sure a storm is coming, late though the seasonis," he remarked, slowly.
"Well, what of that?" declared Sandy, impatiently. "We are neithersugar nor salt, to be washed away by rain or snow. Just think howmother would smile if she saw us carrying home a nice fat buck, or evena doe? Bob, say yes! This chance is too good to be lost."
Apparently his argument carried the day. That last stroke swept themore cautious Robert quite off his feet, for he loved his dear littlemother above all things on earth, and the thought of pleasing her madehim ignore his inner warnings.
"All right, then, Sandy; let's call it a go. Just to be able to carryhome a store of fresh meat we'll take chances. And now to follow thetracks."
With that he bent his keen gaze upon the ground, and immediatelystarted along the trail left by the deer, Sandy following close at hisheels.
Both lads carried the old-time flint-lock muskets, such as were ingeneral use during those early days. They served their purpose fairlywell, especially when in the steady hands of those who knew life oftendepended on accuracy of aim. Many woodrangers and trappers, however,had guns with longer barrels, which they called rifles, and capable ofsending a patched bullet with unerring skill a great distance.
In and out among the trees the two boys moved along. Not a single wordpassed between them until at least a mile had been covered. Then Sandycould restrain his impatience no longer. It was always a difficultthing to keep him "bottled up" when speech was concerned, and hisbrother Bob often declared he would make a good lawyer, or a parson, heliked to hear himself talk so much.
"Are we getting closer, Bob? Is the trail any fresher than before? Oh!I thought I saw something move just then!" he whispered in the other'sear.
"Where?" demanded Bob, instantly, as he turned his head around, a lookof concern on his face; for, while the Indians of Virginia gave littletrouble to the settlers at that day, they were not always to be trusted.
"Never mind," returned Sandy, with a little chuckle; "for I see now itwas only a poor, scared rabbit bounding away. But how about the deer,brother?"
"We must be near him," said Bob, gravely; "and I believe he will turnout to be a five-prong buck, to judge from the size of his hoofs.Silence, now, and we will go on. Remember to keep a close watch ahead,and, if you get a good sight, send your lead back of his foreleg sure."
"You can depend on me, Bob," replied the younger lad; and it was notboastfulness that made him say this, for he had long since developedinto a remarkably clever marksman.
In the fall, when the first snows drifted down through the valleys ofVirginia, the settlers always held shooting matches, where the bestshots of the country competed for prizes, usually some wild turkeysthat had been trapped alive. And more than a few times Sandy had heldhis own with the celebrated sharpshooters among the buckskin-cladhunters from the trails. No eye was quicker than his to glance alongthe shiny barrel of a musket; and when he pulled the trigger his leadusually found its mark, even though the target were but the ever movinghead of a turkey, whose body was hidden in the ground, fully anhundred yards distant from the marksman.
Once more the two boys pushed on. Before five minutes passed Bobnoticed something that gave him a little concern. He had caught sightof the first snowflake that came scurrying along on the wings ofthe rising wind. A little thing in itself, but which might mean atremendous lot to these boys, miles away from home, and surrounded by atrackless forest. In another five minutes, just as he had feared, thesnow was beginning to descend heavily, so that his task of followingthe trail of the deer promised to come to a speedy end, as the groundbegan to be covered with a white mantle.
There was only one thing that could be done now, if they meant topursue the hunt any further. Bob of late had been noting the generaldirection taken by the deer; and they could keep pushing on, each pairof eyes on the alert for signs of the expected quarry.
Now it became necessary to bring to the fore all the knowledge ofwoodcraft the boys possessed. They must judge at a glance just how adeer would proceed while pushing through the forest, avoiding suchdense thickets as promised to entangle his antlers, and at the sametime seeking shelter from possible enemies.
Suddenly Bob came to a stop, and whispered:
"Look ahead to where that pawpaw jungle ends! Something moved there;and blest if I don't think it must be our game!"
Even as he finished speaking, out of the screening hedge leaped agallant buck, his head thrown back, and every muscle in his frameanswering to his fear of human kind.
It was a pretty sight, and one calculated to make the blood bound morequickly through the veins of a hunter; but neither of the boys delayedeven one second in order to admire the scene. Their one thought was ofthe possibility of their eagerly anticipated supply of meat making offon its own rapidly flying hoofs.
Sandy was a bit the quicker in firing, for, being nervous by nature,he knew how to aim more by instinct than by going through a set habit.Still, the two discharges seemed to roll into one; and, with theirhearts in their mouths, the young marksmen looked to ascertain what theresult of the shots might be.
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"Huzza! he is down!" almost shrieked Sandy, as the big buck made atremendous bound into the air, and came crashing upon the snow-coveredearth, where he tried in vain to regain his feet.
"Stop! Remember what old Reuben told you always to do!" cautioned Bob,as he thrust himself in front of Sandy, already in the act of leapingforward.
"I forgot," murmured the other, as with trembling hand he started toreload his gun, some of the powder from his horn slipping out of hisshaking fingers as he attempted to pour it into the muzzle of thebarrel.
Then came a greased bullet in a patch of linen, being pushed down afterthe powder had been rammed good and hard. To prime the flint-lock gunwas no great difficulty, though constant vigilance was needed in orderto make sure that the priming, so essential to a discharge, be notshaken from the pan by accident.
"Now let us go up," said Sandy, after both had reloaded.
"He's kicking his last," remarked his brother, quietly, "and thereis no fear of our losing him. I wonder now if I missed. You were, asusual, ahead of me in firing, Sandy. And I saw him quiver even beforeI pulled trigger, so I know you hit him."
When they bent over the now motionless quarry it was found that therewere _two_ bullet-holes in the deer. (Note 2.)
"Yours is the one behind the shoulder, Sandy, and that killed himinstantly. He could have run a mile or more with the wound throughthe body that I gave him. But never mind, we have had great luck, andmother will be pleased when we carry this meat home."
Bob lost no time in bleeding the game. They were so far away from thecabin that it would be impossible to "tote" the deer there intact; soit was quickly determined to cut up the venison and select the choiceportions.
Both boys carried hunting knives, and they set to work without delay.As they labored they became so interested in what they were doing thatneither seemed to pay any particular attention to the remarkable changethat had come over the weather, until after a while Sandy started tocomplain that it was getting so dark he could hardly see how to work.
Then an exclamation from his brother caused him to raise his head.What he saw was anything but reassuring. The snow was coming downbetween the trees in blinding sheets, driven before a cold wind, thatseemed to be growing stronger with every passing minute.
"No getting back to the cabin for us to-night, Sandy," declared theolder one, with a shake of his head. "This promises to be as bad astorm as we've had all winter, and even at the shortest you know we'dhave a five-hour tramp back home. So we must make the best of a badbargain and camp here in the woods."
"Well," remarked Sandy, whom no danger ever daunted, "anyhow, we've gotplenty to eat, and can keep warm, unless both of us forgot to bringflint and steel along, which I know is not so, for here are mine in mypouch, and some dry tinder as well."
By the time they had finished the task of cutting up the deer, andsecured all the choice portions in the skin, the forest was swathedin a mantle of white; and, on the wind that screeched so noisilywhile hurrying past, came new armies of scurrying snowflakes thatbeat against the faces of the lads until they fairly stung with thepain. Evidently the young pioneers were in for an experience besideswhich all previous encounters with snow-storms would pale into utterinsignificance.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The notes will be found at the end of the book.