From the stand which the deer had taken, its body was in shadow. All
that the sportsman could discern were two living, glowing eyes,
staring--so it appeared to him--straight into his, like starry
search-lights, as if they read the death-purpose in the boy's heart, and
begged him to desist.
It was all over with Neal Farrar's shot. He lowered his rifle, while the
speech, which could no longer be repressed, rattled in his throat before
it broke forth.
"I'll go crazy if I don't speak!" he cried.
At the first word the buck went scudding like the wind through the
forest, doubtless vowing by the shades of his ancestors that he never
would stand to gaze at a light again.
"And--and--I can't shoot the thing while it's looking at me like that!"
the boy blurted out.
"You dunderhead! What do you mean?" gasped Cyrus, breaking silence in a
gusty whisper of mingled anger and amusement. "You won't get a chance to
shoot it or anything else now. You've lost us our meat for to-night."
"Well, I couldn't help it," Neal whispered back. "For pity's sake, what
has been moving this canoe? The quiet was enough to set a fellow mad!
And then that buck stared straight at me like a human thing.
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