Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/93

 Jim, unaware of the presence of those eyes, knew only that success was about to crown his vigil. A deer was coming out of the swamp, the game for which he had been waiting all the long afternoon.

Slowly he raised his gun until the butt rested against his shoulder. Next moment a whitetail doe stepped into view out of the fringe of canes.

Mayfield drew a careful bead as she came on. His long, brown finger was crooked about the trigger. His thin, keen face, pressed against the gunstock, was the face of a hunting hawk. She was within easy range. He could not miss. But moment followed moment and he did not shoot.

Even as he aimed, even as his finger touched the trigger, his face had gone pale beneath its tan. Suddenly, in the nick of time, his thoughts had leaped back to the black oak trunk on the slope behind him and to that which waited and watched in ambush there.

Squinting along the gun barrel he cursed silently, cursing his own folly with something resembling dismay. For a moment he was shaken. The trap had all but closed upon him. He had been very near to the disaster which he dreaded most.

Very slowly he lowered his gun barrel slightly and sat watching. So gradual was the movement that the doe did not see it, while the head of the