There through the
forest, the stag of ten trots, coquetting with greenhorns. He likes
the excitement of being shot at and missed. He enjoys the smell of
powder in a battle where he is always safe. He hears Greenhorn
blundering through the woods, stopping to growl at briers, stopping to
revive his courage with the Dutch supplement. The stag of ten awaits
his foe in a glade. The foe arrives, sees the antlered monarch, and
is panic-struck. He watches him prance and strike the ground with his
hoofs. He slowly recovers heart, takes a pull at his flask, rests his
gun upon a log, and begins to study his mark. The stag will not stand
still. Greenhorn is baffled. At last his target turns and carefully
exposes that region of his body where Greenhorn has read lies the
heart. Just about to fire, he catches the eye of the stag winking
futility into his elaborate aim. His blunderbuss jerks upward. A
shower of cut leaves floats through the smoke, from a tree thirty feet
overhead. Then, with a mild-eyed melancholy look of reproachful
contempt, the stag turns away, and wanders off to sleep in quiet
coverts far within the wood. He has fled, while for Greenhorn no
trophy remains. Antlers have nodded to the sportsman; a short tail
has disappeared before his eyes;--he has seen something, but has
nothing to show.
Pages:
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206