s approach.
The wind was in his favor, too, blowing from the creek toward him. The
doe, which he could not yet see but the patter of whose light hoofs he
had heard as she trotted with her fawn to the drinking place, could not
possibly have discovered his presence; yet she continued to raise her
muzzle at intervals and snuff the wind suspiciously.

The dark aisles of the forest, as yet unillumined by the sun whose
crimson banners would soon be flung above the mountain-tops, seemed
deserted. In the distance the birds were beginning their morning song;
but here the shadow of the mountains lay heavy upon wood and stream and
the feathered choristers awoke more slowly. The two deer at the lick and
the boy who now, from behind the massive bole of a tree, surveyed them,
seemed the only living objects within view.

Enoch raised his heavy rifle, resting the barrel against the tree trunk,
and drew bead at the doe's side. He was chancing a long shot, rather
than taking the risk of approaching any nearer to the animals. He had
seen that the doe was suspicious and she might be off in a flash into
the thicker forest beyond unless he fired at once. Had he been more
experienced he would have wondered what had made the creature
suspicious, his own approach to the lick being quite evidently
undiscovered. But he thought only of getting a perfect sight and that
the larder at home was empty. And this last fact was sufficient to make
the boy's aim certain, his principal care being to waste no powder and
to bring down his game with as little loss of time as might be.

The next moment the heavy muzzle-loading gun roared and the buckshot
sped on its mission. The mother deer gave a convulsive spring forward,
thus warning the poor fawn, which disappeared in the brush like a flash
of brown light. The doe dropped in a heap upon the sward and Enoch,
flushed with success, ran forward to view his prize. In so doing,
however, the boy forgot the first rule of the border ranger and hunter.
He did not reload his weapon.

Stumbling over the widely spread roots of the great tree behind which he
had hidden, he reached the opening in the forest where the tragedy had
been enacted, and would have been on his knees beside the dead deer in
another instant had not an appalling sound stayed him. A scream, the
like of which once heard is never to be forgotten, thrilled him to the
marrow. He started back, casting his glance upward. There was a rustling
in the thic