"You never can tell what them there old five-pronged bucks _will_ do," he
said, as he came up to where Max stood, surveying their prize; "and it's
best to be on the safe side; so that's why I waited to load my gun."

"And I reckon, Steve," said Max, with a smile, "that if you'd waited
before to see if your buck got up again, you'd have downed him for keeps
with that second barrel, and then you wouldn't have had to hunt up the
safe side of a tree."

"Guess that's all to the good, Max," replied the other, humbly.

"Pretty fine-looking buck, ain't he, Steve?"

"Well, I should say yes," was the answer. "And just to think he's the
very five-pronged old boy I've been talking about this long while."

"My, but he acted as though he was mad at you!" Max went on, anxious to
hear some of the particulars of what had happened.

"That's straight goods, Max, and he had reason to be mad at me. I plunked
him with that first shot and he went down. I thought I had him and
started to run in, when, shucks, he got up again!"

"Then you fired again, but so rapidly that you missed; was that it,
Steve?"

"Oh, I admit I was some rattled," replied the other.

"And then after you missed him, Steve?"