"What do you make of it, Quonab?'
The Indian shook his head, then: "Maybe touched his head and
stunned him, first shot; second, wah! I not know."
"I know this," said Rolf. "I touched him and I mean to get him
in the morning."
True to this resolve, he was there again at dawn, but examined
the place in vain for a sign of blood. The red rarely shows up
much on leaves, grass, or dust; but there are two kinds of places
that the hunter can rely on as telltales -- stones and logs.
Rolf followed the deer track, now very dim, till at a bare place
he found a speck of blood on a pebble. Here the trail joined
onto a deer path, with so many tracks that it was hard to say
which was the right one. But Rolf passed quickly along to a log
that crossed the runway, and on that log he found a drop of
dried-up blood that told him what he wished to know.
Now he had a straight run of a quarter of a mile, and from time
to time he saw a peculiar scratching mark that puzzled him. Once
he found a speck of blood at one of these scratches but no other
evidence that the buck was touched.
A wounded deer is pretty sure to work down hill, and Quonab,
leaving Skookum with Rolf, climbed a lookout that might show
whither the deer was heading.
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