s to a hundred and seventy. Must have
made him think this perticler section was inhabited when ye was
lettin' drive at him. Fust shot I know ye shot too quick. I warn't
mor'n a hundred yards from him, then I knowed ye was gittin' stiddier
when I heard ye shoot again."

"Hurrah, boys!" shouted a voice from the bank. It was Holcomb.
"There's our saddle for Randall," he cried as he leaped toward them.

"But, Billy, I came pretty near not getting him after all," exclaimed
Thayor with a laugh. "I was trying to keep your friend in the runway
across the brook from shooting me, but I forgot all about him when I
heard the deer come crashing down stream. If he got a crack at him at
all I didn't hear it, I was so excited. You ought to have told me, Mr.
Holt, you had somebody else watching out across the brook, or I might
have let drive at him by mistake, or he at me." And Thayor laughed
heartily. He was very happy to-day.

The trapper looked at him in wonder.

"Freme warn't down this way was he, Billy?"

Holcomb shook his head--a curious expression on his face.

"Oh, it wasn't Freme," retorted Thayor. "This man was half the size of
Skinner, and a regular scarecrow. Looked as if he hadn't had anything
to eat for weeks--but he could handle a gun all right. That's what
worried me; I was afraid he would use it on me until the old dog lay
down beside him."

The trapper gazed at the hound long and earnestly as if to read his
mind, and then he answered thoughtfully:

"No--he warn't none of our folks, Mr. Thayor--one o' them gunners, I
guess. They all know the old dog. And now," continued the old man, "I
presume, likely, arter we've washed up a mite, we'd better be makin'
tracks for home. I'm gittin' hollerer 'n a gourd. How be you, friend;
hongry?"

"Hungry as a wolf," returned Thayor, still beaming over his good luck.

The Clown now appeared, and drawing his heavy knife, began dressing
the buck.

"Here, Freme," cried the trapper, when the deer had been quartered,
"that's yourn," and he slung the forequarters over the Clown's neck.
"Ride nice?" asked the old man. "Kinder hefty, ain't it, Freme?"

"Wall, it ain't no ear-ring," laughed the Clown, shifting his burden
to a finer balance.

"I'll take the hind quarters," said Thayor, straddling them across
his neck, as the Clown had done, and with his own and Thayor's rifle
spliced to the buck's head, the Clown led the way back to camp.

* * * *