I had left my musket behind, for this heavy travel made me crave to go light, and I had no use for it.

But that day it seemed we were to go hunting.
He carried an old gun, and slew with it a deer in a marshy hollow--a pretty shot, for the animal was ill-placed.

We broiled a steak for our midday meal, and presently clambered up a high woody ridge which looked down on a stream and a piece of green meadow.
Suddenly he stopped.

"A buck," he whispered.

"See what you can do, you that were so ready with your pistol." And he thrust his gun into my hand.
The beast was some thirty paces off in the dusk of the thicket.