ove of widely separated, stately pines, at the far
end of which stood a thicket of young pines and other brush. As we
neared this Haught suddenly reined in, and in quick and noiseless
action he dismounted. Then he jerked his rifle from his saddle-sheath,
took a couple of forward steps, and leveled it. I was so struck with
the rugged and significant picture he made that I did not dismount,
and did not see any game until after he fired. Then as I tumbled off
and got out my rifle I heard Romer gasping and crying out. A gray
streak with a bobbing white end flashed away out of sight to the left.
Next I saw a deer bounding through the thicket. Haught fired again.
The deer ran so fast that I could not get my sights anywhere near him.
Haught thudded through an opening, and an instant later, when both he
and the deer had disappeared, he shot the third time. Presently he
returned.

"Never could shoot with them open sights nohow," he said. "Shore I
missed thet yearlin' buck when he was standin'. Why didn't you smoke
him up?"

"Dad, why didn't you peg him?" asked Romer, with intense regret. "Why,
I could have knocked him."

Then it was incumbent upon me to confess that the action had appeared
to be a little swift. "Wal," said Haught, "when you see one you want
to pile off quick."

As we rode on Romer naively asked me if ever in my life I had seen
anything run so fast as that deer. We entered another big grove with
thin patches of thicket here and there. Haught said these were good
places for deer to lie down, relying on their noses to scent danger
from windward, and on their eyes in the other direction. We circled to
go round thickets, descending somewhat into a swale. Here Haught got
off a little to the right. Romer and I rode up a gentle slope toward
a thin line of little pines, through which I could see into the pines
beyond. Suddenly up jumped three big gray bucks. Literally I fell off
my horse, bounced up, and pulled out my rifle. One buck was loping in
a thicket. I could see his broad, gray body behind the slender trees.
I aimed--followed him--got a bead on him--and was just about to pull
trigger when he vanished. Plunging forward I yelled to Haught. Then
Romer cried in his shrill treble: "Dad, here's a big buck--hurry!"
Turning I ran back. In wild excitement Romer was pointing. I was just
in time to see a gray rump disappear in the green. Just then Haught
shot, and after that he halloed. Romer and I went through the thi