Page:Marching on Niagara.djvu/29

Rh had not raised his flint-lock musket. "If you do you'll scare the deer sure if they are within hearing."

"I wasn't going to shoot, Henry. But just look at the beggars, sitting up and looking at us! I reckon they know they are safe."

"Since the fighting with the French there hasn't been much hunting through here, and so the game is quite tame. But they won't sit long—there they go now. Come."

The pair resumed their journey through the forest, Henry leading the way, for he had been over this trail several times before. Birds were numerous, and they could have filled their canvas bag with ease, had they felt inclined. But the minds of both were on the deer, and to Henry at least it was such game or nothing, although Dave might have contented himself with something smaller. Yet both knew that Mrs. Morris would look forward with pleasure to getting some fresh venison for her table.

At length the pair reached the lower creek which Henry had mentioned. Here the stream which flowed past the Morris homestead split into several arms, one flowing through a wide clearing and the others entering the forest and passing around a series of rough rocks and a cliff nearly fifty feet high. At this point the forest had never yet felt the weight