soon brought it down. Jack
ran after, to prevent a tearing of the hide and flesh. Then he set up a
wild yell, which might have been heard a mile away on the prairie,--a
call for his horseman, who had not yet reappeared.

Jack dragged the fawn and placed it beside its dam. There lay the two
pretty creatures, slaughtered by his hand.

"It can't be helped," thought he. "If it is right to hunt game, it is
right to kill it. If we eat flesh, we must take life."

So he tried to feel nothing but pure triumph at the sight. Yet I have
heard him say, in relating the adventure, that he could never afterwards
think of the dead doe and pretty fawn, lying there side by side, without
a pang.

He now backed his buggy out of the woods, set the seat forward in order
to make room for the deer behind, and waited for his horse.

"Where can that fellow have gone?" he muttered, with growing anxiety.

He went to a hill-top, to get a good view, and strained his vision,
gazing over the prairie. The sun was almost set, and all the hills were
darkening, save now and then one of the highest summits.

Over one of these Jack suddenly descried a distant object moving. It was
no deer this time, but a horse and rider far away, and going at a
gallop--in the wrong direction.

He gazed until they disappeared over the crest, and the faint sundown
glory faded from it, and he felt the lonesome night shutting down over
the limitless expanse. Then he smote his hands together with fury and
despair.

He knew that the horse was his own, and the rider the strange youth in
whose hands he had so rashly intrusted him. And here he was, five miles
from home, with the darkening forest on one side, and the vast prairie
on the other; the dead doe and fawn lying down there on the dewy grass,
the empty buggy and harness beside them; and only his dog to keep him
company.

CHAPTER V.

THE BOY WITH ONE SUSPENDER.

Jack's first thought, after assuring himself that his horse was
irrevocably gone, was to run for help to the line of settlements on the
other side of the grove, where some means of pursuit might be obtained.

He knew that the road which Mr. Wiggett had described could not be much
beyond the hollow where his wagon was; and, dashing forward, he soon
found it. Then, stopping to give a last despairing look at the billowy
line of prairie over which his horse had disappeared, he started to run
through the woods.

He had not gone far when he heard a