"
"Pokers," it appears, have a habit of poking out of mobs, grazing quietly
as they edge off until "they're gone before you miss 'em." Camps seem to
have some special attraction for pokers, but we learned they object to
interference. Poke round peaceful as cats until "you rile them," Dan told
us, and then glided into a tale of how a poker "had us all treed once."
"Poked in a bit too close for our fancy while we were at supper," he
explained, "so we slung sticks at him to turn him back to the mob, and
the next minute was making for trees, but as there was only saplings
handy, it would have been a bit awkward for the heavy weights if there
hadn't have been enough of us to divide his attentions up a bit." (Dan
was a good six feet, and well set up at that.) "Climbing saplings to get
away from a stag isn't much of a game," he added, with a reminiscent
chuckle; "they're too good at the bending trick. The farther up the
sapling you climb, the nearer you get to the ground."
Then he favoured us with one of his word-pictures: "There was the sapling
bending like a weeping willow," he said, "and there was the stag
underneath it, looking up at me and asking if he could do anything for
me, taking a poke at me boot now and then, just to show nothing would be
no bother, and there was me, hanging on to the sapling, and leaning
lovingly over him, telling him not to go hanging round, tiring himself
out on my account; and there was the other chaps--all light
weights--laughing fit to split, safe in their saplings.
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