If we went
on he would jump away on the other side of the alders and that would be
the last of him. I am going off to the right, and then I will walk slowly
towards him. The river is shallow here, and it is the only open spot. He
will surely jump in it, and probably stop for a second to see what is
coming, for he won't smell me. You will have a fine chance at him from
here."
He placed the gun in my hands, already cocked, and was gone, noiselessly,
in an instant. I watched those bushes eagerly, and once again saw the big
tops of those antlers above the alders. Behind me everything was
wonderfully still, and I could hear the beating of my heart. The doctor
seemed to have been swallowed up by the wilderness, and I have never felt
so entirely alone as at that moment. An instant later I realized that a
strange thing was happening; I was no longer nervous, and my hands were
perfectly steady. After this, away to the right, I heard the faintest
crackling of branches and the horns appeared again, absolutely still for
a moment. Then another little branch cracked, and there was a turmoil in
the bushes, a splashing over the shallow, gravelly bottom of the little
stream, and the great, gray-brown body and white, arching neck of the
stag appeared, like a thing out of a fairy book. The head was noble,
poised on that snowy neck, and the antlers looked like a tangle of brush.
The lithe thing stopped, the sensitive ears went back, and he started
again.
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