Chapter 66. A Lesson in Stalking
“Did you ever see any fighting, Quonab?”
“Ugh! In Revolution, scouted for General Gates.”
“Judging by the talk, we're liable to be called on before a year. What will you do?”
“Fight.”
“As soldier?”
“No! scout.”
“They may not want us.”
“Always want scouts,” replied the Indian.
“It seems to me I ought to start training now.”
“You have been training.”
“How is that?”
“A scout is everything that an army is, but it's all in one man. An' he don't have to keep step.”
“I see, I see,” replied Rolf, and he realized that a scout is merely a trained hunter who is compelled by war to hunt his country's foes instead of the beasts of the woods.
“See that?” said the Indian, and he pointed to a buck that was nosing for cranberries in the open expanse across the river where it left the lake. “Now, I show you scouting.” He glanced at the smoke from the fire, found it right for his plan, and said: “See! I take my bow. No cover, yet I will come close and kill that deer.”
Then began a performance that was new to Rolf, and showed that the Indian had indeed reached the highest pitch of woodcraft. He took his bow and three good arrows, tied a band around his head, and into this stuck a lot of twigs and vines, so that his head looked like a tussock of herbage. Then he left the shanty door, and, concealed by the last bushes on the edge, he reached the open plain. Two hundred yards off was the buck, nosing among the herbage, and, from time to time, raising its superb head and columnar neck to look around. There was no cover but creeping herbage. Rolf suspected that the Indian would decoy the buck by some whistle or challenge, for the thickness of its neck showed the deer to be in fighting humour.
Flat on his breast the Indian lay. His knees and elbow seemed to develop centipedic power; his head was a mere clump of growing stuff. He snaked his way quietly for twenty-five yards, then came to the open, sloping shore, with the river forty yards wide of level shining ice, all in plain view of the deer; how was this to be covered?
There is a well-known peculiarity of the white tail that the Indian was counting on; when its head is down grazing, even though not hidden, the deer does not see distant objects; before the head is raised, its tail is raised or shaken. Quonab knew that if he could keep the tail in view, he could avoid being viewed by the head. In a word, only an ill-timed movement or a whiff could betray him.
The open ice was, of course, a hard test, and the hunter might have failed, but that his long form looked like one of the logs that were lying about half stranded or frozen in the stream.
Watching ever the alert head and tail, he timed his approach, working hard and moving East when the head was down; but when warned by a tail-jerk he turned to a log nor moved a muscle. Once the ice was crossed, the danger of being seen was less, but of being smelt was greater, for the deer was moving about, and Quonab watched the smoke from the cabin for knowledge of the wind. So he came within fifty yards, and the buck, still sniffing along and eagerly champing the few red cranberries it found above the frozen moss, was working toward a somewhat higher cover. The herbage was now fully eighteen inches high, and Quonab moved a little faster. The buck found a large patch of berries under a tussock and dropped on its knees to pick them out, while Quonab saw the chance and gained ten yards before the tail gave warning. After so long a feeding-spell, the buck took an extra long lookout, and then walked toward the timber, whereby the Indian lost all he had gained. But the browser's eye was drawn by a shining bunch of red, then another; and now the buck swung until there was danger of betrayal by the wind; then down went its head and Quonab retreated ten yards to keep the windward. Once the buck raised its muzzle and sniffed with flaring nostrils, as though its ancient friend had brought a warning. But soon he seemed reassured, for the landscape showed no foe, and nosed back and forth, while Quonab regained the yards he had lost. The buck worked now to the taller cover, and again a tempting bunch of berries under a low, dense bush caused it to kneel for farther under-reaching. Quonab glided swiftly forward, reached the twenty-five-yard limit, rose to one knee, bent the stark cedar bow. Rolf saw the buck bound in air, then make for the wood with great, high leaps; the dash of disappointment was on him, but Quonab stood erect, with right hand raised, and shouted:
“Ho—ho.”
He knew that those bounds were unnecessarily high, and before the woods had swallowed up the buck, it fell—rose—and fell again, to rise not. The arrow had pierced its heart.
Then Rolf rushed up with kindled eye and exultant pride to slap his friend on the back, and exclaim:
“I never thought it possible; the greatest feat in hunting I ever saw; you are a wonder!”
To which the Indian softly replied, as he smiled:
“Ho! it was so I got eleven British sentries in the war. They gave me a medal with Washington's head.”
“They did! how is it I never heard of it? Where is it?”
The Indian's face darkened. “I threw it after the ship that stole my Gamowini.”