Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/163

 “I might think so, for it’s easy to do that with him, if it warn’t that the wind blows the wrong way. But they’re mighty cute critters, and the buck is scared over something. Now’s the time when the darky oughter stop.”

“He seems to have done that. He is half hidden by the grass, but I don’t think he is stirring.”

From their elevation the couple by using care could peer over the crest without drawing the attention of the game to themselves. Looking down on the colored youth, as he was partly revealed, it was evident he had noticed the action of the prongbuck. Jethro had ceased moving, and sank so flat on the ground that the game became invisible to him.

Waiting thus a few minutes, he slowly raised his head, parting the spears in front until once more he saw the game.

The two had not stopped grazing for a moment, and the buck now lowered his head and resumed feeding. If he had been alarmed his fears quickly left him.

Jethro resumed his painstaking progress and kept it up until within two hundred yards of the group, no one of which raised a head. The distance was too great for a shot, though