|ONE who has never tried the experiment can have no idea how easy it
is to miss when firing from horseback at a buck who sends your heart
up into your mouth by springing up from beneath your horse's heels, and
then speeds away, twisting and turning among the boles of the trees.
Men who could bring down a partridge with each barrel have been known to
shoot away half a bag of shot before they began to get the hang of the
thing.
The shades of evening were falling. Humiliating though it was, we had
fallen, too, with a will on our gameless supper.
“S-t! Listen! What's that?”
We pricked up our ears. Presently there came softly echoing from far
away in the forest a long-drawn cry, ringing, melodious, clear as a
bugle call.
“Billy!”
The welkin rang with our joyous shouts. Half our party sprang to their
feet and red-hot coffee splashed from tin cups. “Hurrah!”
“Marse Billy got the keenest holler I ever hear!” chuckled Beverly.
“Bound he fetch luck 'long wid him! No mo' bacon for supper arter dis.”
We craned our necks to catch the first glimpse of our mascot. Obviously,
from the direction of the joyous yells with which he answered our
welcoming shouts, he had abandoned the road and was riding straight
through the open woods. Presently we descried through the deepening
twilight his portly form looming up atop a tall gray. Then two vivid
flashes and two loud reports, followed by a mad rush of the gray, which
came tearing down on us in wild terror, and for a minute we were treated
to something like an amateur episode from one of Mr. Buffalo Bill's
entertainments. Amid roars of laughing welcome the ponderous knight was
at last helped down from his trembling steed, whose bridle Beverly had
been able luckily to snatch as he floundered among the tent ropes.
“And where the deuce did you pick up that wild beast? Surely you can't
expect to shoot from him!”
“Oh, I'll cool him down in a day or two; he'll soon get used to it.”
In point of fact a horse who dreads a gun gets more and more terror
stricken as the hunt goes on, the mere sight of a deer, the cocking of
a gun even, sufficing to set him off into plungings that grow day by day
more violent. This none should have known better than Blount; for never,
by any chance, did he ride to the hunt with an animal that would “stand
fire.” The discharge of his gun, the rise of a buck even, was always the
opening of a circus with him. But he managed invariably to let off both
barrels--one perhaps through the tree tops, the other into the ground.
In one particular alone was he provident. He brought always so immense
a supply of ammunition that toward the close of the hunt his tent was a
supply magazine to the less thoughtful.
“What!” exclaimed Blount, “not a single one! Ah! boys, that was because
I was not with you.” The jovial soul had not a trace of conceit; he was
merely sanguine--contagiously, gloriously, magnificently sanguine.
“Ah, but won't we knock 'em over tomorrow!” And straightway we lifted up
our hearts and had faith in this prophet of pleasant things.
“Beverly, will that mule Ned stand fire?”
“I dunno, Marse Billy; nobody ain't nebber tried him. But I 'spec' you
wouldn't ax him no odds.”
“I'll go and have a look at him.”
Shortly afterward we heard two tremendous explosions, followed by a
frenzied clatter of hoofs and the sound of breaking branches, and up
there came, running and laughing, a Monsieur Wynen, a Belgian violinist,
a real artist, who was one of our party (though never a trigger did he
pull during the entire hunt).
“What's the matter?”
Wynen was first violin in an opera troupe.
“It is only Blount rehearsing Ned.”
Any man in the world except Blount would have tested that demure wheel
mule's views as to firearms by firing off his gun in his neighborhood as
he stood tethered. Not so Billy. Mounting the guileless and unsuspecting
Ned, and casting the reins upon his bristly neck, he had let drive.
Shocked beyond expression by the dreadful roar and flash (it was now
night) Ned had made a mad rush through the woods. In vain; for
Blount had a good seat. Then had there come into Ned's wily brain the
reminiscence of a trick that he had never known to fail in thirty years.
He stopped suddenly, still as a gate post, at the same time bracing his
vertebrae into the similitude of a barrel hoop, and instantly Blount lay
sprawling upon his jolly back; and there was a second roar, followed by
a rush of buckshot among the leaves and around the legs of the audience
that was watching the rehearsal. “Never mind, Jack,” said he to me,
shortly afterward, “I'll find something that will stand fire” and
throwing his arm around my shoulder for a confidential talk of the
slaughter he was to do on the morrow, his sanguine soul bubbled into my
sympathetic ear:
“I say, Jack, don't tell the boys; but I have got two bags of shot. They
would laugh, of course. Now, how many ought a fellow to bring down with
two bags? I mean a cool-headed chap who does not lose his head. How
does one dozen to the bag strike you? Reasonable? H'm? Of course.
Twenty-four, then. Well, let us say twenty-five, just to round off
things. Golly! Why, nine is the highest score I ever made. Twenty-five!
Why, that is a quarter of a hundred. Did you notice that? Whee-ew! The
boys will stop bedeviling me after that, h'm? I should say so. Not a
rascal of them all ever killed so many. Cool and steady, that's the
thing, my boy. Up he jumps! What of that? Don't be flustered, I tell
you. Count ten. Then lower your gun. There is not the least hurry in the
world. Drop the muzzle on his side, just behind his shoulder. Steady!
Let him think you are not after deer this morning. If it is a doe let it
appear that you are loaded for buck. Bang! Over he tumbles in his
tracks. You load up and are off again. Up hops another--a beauty. Same
tactics--boo-doo-ee! Got him! What's the sense of throwing away your
shot? Costs money--delays the line. Cool--cool and steady--that's the
word, my boy. Get any shots to-day? Three? Hit anything?”
It was too dark for him to see how pale I went at this question. “Mr.
Blount,” said I, with a choking in my throat (nobody could help telling
the big-hearted fellow everything), “you won't tell my father, will
you?”
“Tell him what?”
“Well, you see, he cautioned me over and over again never, under
any circumstances, to fire at a deer that ran toward a neighboring
huntsman.”
“Of course not--never!” echoed Blount with conviction.
“And to-day--and to-day, when I was not thinking of such a thing, a big
buck jumped up from right under my horse's belly, and did you notice
that gray-headed old gentleman by the fire? Well, the buck rushed
straight toward him--and I forgot all about what my father had said and
banged away.”
“Did you pepper him?” put in Billy eagerly.
“Pepper him!”
“I mean the buck.”
“I don't know, he went on.”
“They will do it, occasionally, somehow.”
“When I saw the leaves raining down on the old gentleman, my heart
stopped beating. You will not tell my father?”
“Pshaw! There was no harm done. We must trust to Providence in these
matters. What did the old gentleman say?”
“Not a word; it was his first campaign, too. His eyes were nearly
popping out of his head. He let off both barrels. The shot whistled
around me!”
“The old fool! He ought to know better. To-morrow your father must put
you next to me.”
Blount brought us hilarity and hope, but no luck, at any rate at first.
When we rode slowly into camp on the following day, just as the sun went
down, we had one solitary doe to show. Blount--Blount of all men--had
killed it. The servants hung it up on one of the poles that remained
from year to year stretched against the neighboring trees.
Owing to Blount's weight his game was always strapped behind some less
lucky huntsman; so we had had no opportunity of examining his riddled
quarry.
“Why, how is this?” exclaimed he. “Oh, I remember; the other side was
toward me.”
We went around to the other side. Had the doe died of fright? After
much searching we found one bullet hole just behind the shoulder. Blount
always put four extra bullets into his load. So he had showered down
forty buckshot upon a doe lying in her bed at a distance of twenty feet
and struck her with one.
“I say, Jack, for the Lord's sake don't tell the boys!”
After these two days our luck improved, and at the end of the hunt our
score reached seventy-eight; the smallest number, by the way, that the
club had ever killed. It would hardly be interesting to go into the
details of each day's sport, but our hero's adventures one night seem
worth recording. To this joyous and indefatigable spirit the day was all
too short. No sooner had he eaten his supper each day than he began to
importune the younger men of the party to join him in a “fire hunt;”
but, as they were not Blounts, they felt that a long day in the saddle
was enough. In his despair Blount turned to Beverly. That amiable
creature, not knowing how to refuse the request of a white gentmun,
assented, but with a quaking heart, for were not the surrounding forests
swarming with ravenous wolves? He had often lain awake and listened
complacently enough to their howling, but to trust, to thrust, himself
wantonly among them at dead of night!
“Wid nobody along but Marse Billy Blount, an' he couldn't hit nothin',
even by daylight, onless dey asleep. He hear 'em say wolf 'fraid o'
fire. Maybe he is. But lights draws dem wild varmints, an' 'sposin'
arter a whole congregation un 'em done come up starin' at de light;
'sposin' somehow or nuther de torch got out--whar Beverly den? Marse
Billy got de gun; but whar Beverly? Ain't I hear people say wolf more
ambitiouser for nig-gar dan for sheep meat? Howsomever, ef my own
mahster willin' to resk losin' of me, I can stand it, I reckon. But Tom,
ef you should wake up, and hear something coming through de bresh like a
drove o' steers, you needn't ax what dat; it's me and de wolves a-makin'
for camp; an' me in the lead, wid de help o' de Laud.” Sitting in front
of the blazing logs and chatting with his fellow cooks, Beverly could
see the humor of his quite real fears.
Behold, then, the burly knight and his dusky and not over-valiant squire
setting forth in quest of adventure--the one mounted on his tall gray,
the other astraddle of Ned. It appears incredible that any man in his
senses would take two such ani-malson such an expedition, but there
never was but one Blount. Beverly carried the gun, his chief the torch,
consisting of “lightwood” knots blazing in the bowl of a long-handled
frying pan. The handle, resting on the right shoulder, was held
somewhat depressed, so that the light should shine above the head of
the huntsman, illumining the woods in his front. The sportsman, slowly
waving the handle to and fro, peers intently into the darkness in quest
of the gleaming eyes of some staring buck.
Presently a dismal howl from far away to the right came stealing through
the silence. And presently an answering cry from the left, and much
nearer. And another, and another! _Ugh! what was that?_ A rabbit had
darted under Ned, across the rattling leaves. Beverly, shivering, dug
his heels into Ned's ribs. Ned pressed forward till his nose touched
the ticklish flank of the gray. The gray let fly with whizzing hoof. Ned
shut his eyes, unwilling to witness the enormity of an aged mule being
kicked at by torchlight.
“Beverly! Beverly!” breathed the knight eagerly, “gimme the gun! gimme
the gun! I see a pair of eyes as big as saucers!”
“M--M--Marse B--B--Billy------------”
“Quick! gimme the gun! What the devil is the matter with you?”
“De wolves, Marse Billy! 'Sposin' arter de gun done empty dey splunge in
upon us? I bound a whole nation un 'em watchin' us dis minute!”
Blount wrested the gun from the reluctant Beverly, whose knee now
trembled against his. Pressing down the pan handle so as to throw the
light well in front, he cocked the gun, adjusted it to his shoulder,
took aim, and pulled the trigger.
Blount, in reply to the warning of his friends, had urged that it
might very well be that a horse that shied by day at a gun would act
differently at night. And he was right. By daylight the gray was in the
habit of making one or two violent plunges when his rider fired. But
tonight, when that terrible roar broke the stillness and that fierce
blaze flashed into his eyes----
Immediately after the sound of the gun reached us we heard the anxious,
jolting bray of a trotting mule. The disjointed, semi-asinine song came
nearer, and presently Ned hurried past the fire to his place by his
tethered mate, with a low equine chuckle of satisfaction. In his wake
rushed Beverly, panting, wide eyed. It was a full minute before he could
speak.
“Lord, mahsters, don't ax me nothin'; I don't know nothin' 'bout it.
I 'most don't know whether I here or no arter de way dem revengious
varmints whoop me through dem woods, a-yelpin' an' a-gnash-in' o' deir
teeth. B'fo' Gaud, I thought every minute was gwine to be my next! When
Marse Billy shoot, though I beg him not to, seein' dat de whole woods
was a-bilin' wid wolves, dat fool of a horse o' hisn jess riz on
his hind legs an' splunge right over me an' Ned, jess like we warn't
nothin't all. Dem lightwood knots flew right up, same as one o' dem
blaze o' glories I see when I got religion. I lit on my head. Ned he
went oneway; Marse Billy horse anudder. But seein' as I done knowed
Ned de longest, I followed him--an' he fotch me home. Run? No, twarnt
runnin', twas flyin'; an' every jump de varmints was a-reachin' for me.
I hear deir teeth, jess as plain, clashin' like sheep shears. Umgh-umgh!
Beverly hump heself he did. Jess look at my clothes! I left de rest
of 'em on de bushes. Whar Marse Billy? Lord a-mussy, I dunno! I mighty
'fraid de wolves done got him, leastwise ef he didn't set hard on dat
dere fool gray.
“Mahster, couldn't you gimme jess a leetle tetch o' dat whiskey? I'se
powerful downhearted. Thank you, mahster. But mahster, don't lemme go
no mo' a spotin' along o' Marse Billy; seem like I ain't dat kind. Lemme
drive my mules, lemme cook, don't lemme go projickin' about wid Marse
Billy Blount no mo'. You laughin', is you, Tom? Nemmind--you go next
time!”
Presently there came to us from far away a doleful yell, with nothing
of the bugle blast in it. “There he is!” and we made response with
laughter-choked shouts.
About fifteen minutes afterward the sound of hoofs was heard, and
presently our mighty hunter appeared, but _quantum mutatus ab illo!_ No
hat, no gun, one skirt of his coat and half of the buttons gone; shirt
bosom torn out, trousers hanging in ribbons! But though his face was
scratched beyond recognition he remained the one, only true Blount in
the world; though his eyes were bloodshot they beamed with conscious
victory.
“Boys,” said he, “which of you will go and help me bring him in?”
“Bring what in?”
“Why, the buck--I blew his infernal head off, sure!”
Next morning Blount and Beverly rode to the scene of their exploit, and
Blount secured his gun and Beverly his frying pan. 'The buck had either
walked off without his head or been swallowed by one of the varmints.