Chapter X: Walter and the Engineer Go A-Hunting

A FEW feet in front of McCarty lay a little mound of soft dirt, thrown up by a gopher when digging its hole down deep into the earth. It was the stirring of this mound of sand that had called forth Walter's exclamation.

The boys watched, fascinated, as the sand trembled more violently, and a big, flat head, with lidless eyes, reared itself above the dirt. At sight of the repulsive-looking head, both boys fired, and the head dropped back, nearly severed from its body.

"Gracious!" exclaimed Walter, as they pried the rest of the body from the sand with their gun barrels. "Did you ever see one like it in your life?"

"I never saw such a monster before, and I don't believe anyone else ever did," agreed McCarty, as he gazed down at the beautiful, diamond-marked body of the huge rattlesnake, for such it was.

Walter measured the body with his gun barrel, while McCarty counted the rattles at the tip of the tail.

"It's eight feet two inches long," Walter announced. "No one will ever believe that we killed a rattle of that size."

"Well, here is one way to convince them," said McCarty, as, with his knife he severed the rattles from the body. "They can't doubt that it was a whopper. Here's twenty-four rattles and a button, which shows that it was twenty-four years old."

"My, but I would like to get that skin off," Walter said, longingly. "It's a beauty, but I'm afraid to skin it."

"Yes, it would be risky," agreed McCarty, who, like his companion, was well versed as a hunter. "It may have bitten itself when the fire was going over it. But come, let's move on. The sport is only just beginning. Did you notice where that covey of quail settled?"

"Yes," Walter said, "they went down in that bunch of spruce over there. Bob is nosing them up already."

The lads followed up the sniffing dog, and out of the rise Walter got seven more birds. "That makes twenty," he observed. "That's enough for supper, and there is no use killing more than we can use. I've got some buckshot cartridges. Let's try and find some bigger game. You've had no fun at all, so far. I've been having it all. Which is the best way to go?"

"I don't really know," said McCarty. "I have never hunted far from camp out here, but, I fancy, straight ahead is as good as any. I climbed way up on the machine's boom the other day and took a good look over the country. Say, it's the craziest looking country you ever saw. It's a regular Chinese puzzle of stretches of prairie, ponds, bits of flat woods, hummocks, and even little hills rising up suddenly from the prairie. It's a queer country, all right. Looks as though there might be any kind of game in it. Hang it, there goes that fool, dog again. Won't he ever learn a lesson?"

Bob, barking madly, had dashed into a little thicket a few paces ahead.

"Hold on!" McCarty cried, as Walter started forward with cocked gun. "Bob, Bob," he yelled. "Come here; come here, you fool."

But the dog did not instantly obey. Instead, from the thicket came the sound of a fierce struggle.

"What can be in there?" Walter asked anxiously. "It sounds as though Bob was getting the worst of it."

"He is, and he isn't," grinned the other. "Just wait a minute and you will see what I mean."

Walter did not have long to wait. Soon a few short barks announced that Bob had triumphed, and a moment later the dog emerged from the bushes, but not before a villainous odor had reached the boys' nostrils. So strong and sickening it was, that the lads retreated in haste.

"Get out of here; go home," ordered McCarty angrily. "Go home, you fool."

Bob stopped and eyed him reproachfully; then, as if in obedience to an oft-repeated lesson, he turned around and trotted back to camp.

McCarty chuckled as he gazed after him. "That's Bob's one failing," he said. "He will go out of his way to tackle a pole-cat. As soon as the scent of one battle wears off he goes out and seeks another. Seems like a regular mania with him. I sure hope he will not do as he did last time--when he went back to camp, sneaked into my tent and went to sleep on my cot. Whew! I had to burn my blankets and fumigate my tent before I could sleep in it again, but I guess I had better shut up. If we talk as we go along, we will never get near a deer."

Thus far the boys had been traveling through low, flat woods, scantily dotted with small pine trees and little thickets of spruces and oaks, but soon they began to enter an entirely different kind of country. Before them stretched a vast prairie, covered with grass and broken here and there by rising hummocks, densely wooded with pines, oaks and huge tropical trees. Every few hundred yards they saw grass ponds, or little sandy-bottomed lakes of crystal-clear water. Beside one of these little lakes the lads stopped to eat their lunch. It was full of fish of all sizes.

"I wish Chris was here," Walter observed. "He would have the time of his life yanking out those big fellows."

"Oh, he can get all the fishing he wants right close to camp," McCarty said. "I never saw such a country for fish in my life. Any hole that is deep enough to hold water is full of fish. Even the ditches the machine has left behind are full of little minnows already."

The lunch finished and washed down by draughts of clear, cold water from the lake, the lads began searching around its sandy shore for deer signs. They found animal tracks in abundance, and were amazed at the number of different kinds--coons, wild-cats, foxes, deer, bears--all seemed to have made the little lake their drinking place, and, in one place, they came upon the padded footprint of a panther.

"My, I wish we could put in a week hunting around this little lake," said McCarty regretfully. "We could make a shelter not far away and take stands here at night. But, wishing don't accomplish much, so I guess we might as well be pushing on. Without a dog our only chance is to work up against the wind and keep our eyes open."

They had traveled about two miles in this manner when Walter suddenly stopped. "Look ahead, there," he exclaimed. "Can't you see something rising up a little above the grass?"

"By George, you beat me to it," McCarty acknowledged. "It's a deer's antlers. The deer must be lying down resting, or we would see its body from here. It's hands and knees for us now. We had better keep together and make as little noise as we can. A deer's hearing is keen."

It was slow, hard work, crawling forward in this manner, but in the excitement the boys did not notice the strain it put on hands and knees. From time to time they would raise their heads cautiously and peer ahead, to see if the deer was still there. An hour and half of this slow traveling brought them to within a few hundred yards of the resting animal; then it suddenly arose, and sniffed the air suspiciously, with its head thrown back.

"Don't move," McCarty whispered. "It's beginning to scent danger."

The boys lay quiet for several minutes; then slowly raising their heads, took another peep. The deer still stood broadside to them, sniffing the air.

"It's no use trying to get any closer," Walter whispered softly. "It's ready to run at any minute. Better try a crack at it with your rifle. I'll get up on my knees and you can get a rest on my shoulder."

McCarty noiselessly obeyed, and, taking careful aim, fired.

"I got him," he shouted, as the deer sank to its knees, but, even as he spoke, the deer was up again and off like a flash. McCarty, taken unawares, had to stop to eject the worthless shell and throw in a new one, by which time the deer was far away, running in great bounds over the prairie.

Walter could not refrain from laughing at the expression on the other's face. "Counted your chickens before they were hatched," he chuckled.

"Oh, I got him all right!" declared his companion confidently. "Look at the blood on the grass. He can't run far before he drops. See, he is beginning to falter now."

All the while they had been talking the boys had been hurrying after the deer, which, although a good mile away, was still in plain sight. Within five minutes after McCarty spoke, it suddenly disappeared.

"It's down," McCarty cried. "Let's hurry as fast as we can. It's getting late, and we are a good eight miles from camp."

When they reached the deer it was dead. The bullet had passed through the body close to the heart. McCarty produced a cord from his game bag, and, tying its front legs to its hind ones, slung the deer upon his back. "If you'll bring my gun, I'll manage the deer," he said. "It's a rule of the chase that each man shall bring in his own kill."

Walter slung the rifle over his shoulder. "I'll spell you when you get tired," he offered.

"I am not likely to get tired. The only thing I'm afraid of is that we are not going to be able to make camp before dark, and, for certain reasons, I hate to camp in this country overnight."