“Shoot!  Shoot!” said Sam and Guy.

Yan wondered why they did not shoot.  He turned, and in spite of his agitation he saw that they were making fun of him.  He glanced at the Deer again, moved up a little closer and saw the trick.

Then they hooted aloud.  Yan was a little crestfallen.  Oh, it had been such an exquisite feeling!  The drop was long and hard, but he rallied quickly.

“I’ll shoot your Deer for you,” he said, and sent an arrow close under it.

“Well, I kin beat that,” and Sam and Guy both fired.  Sam’s arrow stuck in the Deer’s nose.  At that he gave a yell; then all shot till the head was stuck full of arrows, and they returned to the teepee to get dinner.  They were still chaffing Yan about the Deer when he said slowly to Guy: 

“Generally you are not so smart as you think you are, but this time you’re smarter.  You’ve given me a notion.”

So after dinner he got a sack about three feet long and stuffed it full of dry grass; then he made a small sack about two and a half feet long and six inches thick, but with an elbow in it and pointed at one end.  This he also stuffed with hay and sewed with a bone needle to the big sack.  Next he cut four sticks of soft pine for legs and put them into the four corners of the big sack, wrapping them with bits of sacking to be like the rest.  Then he cut two ears out of flat sticks; painted black eyes and nose with a ring of white around each, just as Sappy had done, but finally added a black spot on each side of the body, and around that a broad gray hand.  Now he had completed what every one could see was meant for a Deer.

The other boys helped a little, but not did cease to chaff him.

“Who’s to be fooled this time?” asked Guy.

“You,” was the answer.

“I’ll bet you’ll get buck fever the first time you come across it,” chuckled the Head Chief.

“Maybe I will, but you’ll all have a chance.  Now you fellers stay here and I’ll hide the Deer.  Wait till I come back.”

So Yan ran off northward with the dummy, then swung around to the east and hid it at a place quite out of the line that he first took.  He returned nearly to where he came out, shouting “Ready!”

Then the hunters sallied forth fully armed, and Yan explained:  “First to find it counts ten and has first shot.  If he misses, next one can walk up five steps and shoot; if he misses, next walks five steps more, and so on until the Deer is hit.  Then all the shooting must be done from the place where that arrow was fired.  A shot in the heart counts ten; in the gray counts five; that’s a body wound—­and a hit outside of that counts one—­that’s a scratch.  If the Deer gets away without a shot in the heart, then I count twenty-five, and the first one to find it is Deer for next hunt—­twelve shots each is the limit.”

The two hunters searched about for a long time.  Sam made disparaging remarks about the trail this Deer did not leave, and Guy sneaked and peaked in every thicket.