“It seems to me that the sooner I can get south and put in my record the less hungry I’m likely to be,” he said.  “It would be kind of convenient if I could find a deer.  I wonder just how far back the other man is?”

CHAPTER XIX

FOUL PLAY

Alton looked for a deer on the morrow and during several days that followed without finding it.  There are tracts of the mountain province which for no apparent reason are almost devoid of animal life, while the deer are also addicted to travelling south towards valleys swept by the warm Chinook wind before the approach of winter.  Meanwhile, though he husbanded it, the piece of pork grew rapidly smaller, and Alton hungry, while there were times when he wondered somewhat anxiously when he would find his comrades.  It was unpleasantly possible that he might miss them, which would have been especially unfortunate, because, as every adult citizen is entitled to claim so many feet of frontage on unrecorded mineral land which pertains to the Crown, it appeared advisable that they should have the opportunity of staking off two more claims, and his provisions were almost exhausted.

Thus it came about that one evening he tramped somewhat dejectedly back towards his camp through a strip of thinner forest high up on the hill.  There was a sting of frost in the air and a little snow beneath his feet, while his belt was girded about him tightly and his fingers stiffened on the rifle-barrel.  Alton had eaten nothing since early morning, and very little then, while the fashion in which he stumbled through the thickets and amidst the fern conveyed a hint of exhaustion.  It was, however, fortunate that a twig snapped noisily beneath him, because the deer are difficult to see in their sylvan home, and the sound was answered by a crackle that roused him to eager attention.

Alton, knowing there was a big fir behind him, stood very still, glancing about him without a movement of his head, until he made out what might have been a forked twig rising above the thicket.  He did not, however, think it was, and gazing more intently fancied he saw a patch of something that was not the fern.  He knew that at the first movement it would be gone, and there was no time for any fine alignment of the sights of the rifle, so leaning slightly forward he drew his right foot back, and with eyes fixed steadily on the little patch amidst the fern, trusted to them and the balance as he flung the long barrel up.  Few men can use the rifle as the Canadian bush rancher can, and there was a flash from the muzzle as the heelplate touched his shoulder.  Alton had not glanced along the barrel, but the curious thud which he heard in place of the explosion told him that the heavy bullet was smashing through bone and muscle.  Then thin smoke drifted into his eyes, and there was a crackling amidst the thicket.