“Seems to me there’s something wrong; that Deer ought to have a trail.”

“That’s so,” assented Yan.  “Wonder if he couldn’t drag an old root!”

“If there was snow it’d be easy.”

“I’ll tell you, Sam; we’ll tear up paper and leave a paper trail.”

“Now you’re talking.”  So all ran to camp.  Every available scrap of wrapping paper was torn up small and put in a “scent bag.”

Since no one found the Deer last time, Guy had the right to hide it again.

He made a very crooked trail and a very careful hide, so that the boys nearly walked onto the Deer before they saw it about fifteen yards away.  Sam scored ten for the find.  He fired and missed.  Yan now stepped up his five paces and fired so hastily that he also missed.  Guy now had a shot at it at five yards, and, of course, hit the Deer in the heart.  This succession of triumphs swelled his head nearly to the bursting point, and his boasting passed all bounds.  But it now became clear that there must be a limit to the stepping up.  So the new rule was made, “No stepping up nearer than fifteen paces.”

The game grew as they followed it.  Its resemblance to real hunting was very marked.  The boys found that they could follow the trail, or sweep the woods with their eyes as they pleased, and find the game, but the wisest way was a combination.  Yan was too much for the trail, Sam too much for the general lookout, but Guy seemed always in luck.  His little piglike eyes took in everything, and here at length he found a department in which he could lead.  It looked as though little pig-eyed Guy was really cut out for a hunter.  He made a number of very clever hidings of the Deer.  Once he led the trail to the pond, then, across, and right opposite he put the Deer in full view, so that they saw it at once in the open; they were obliged either to shoot across the pond, or step farther away round the edge, or step into the deep water, and again Guy scored.  It was found necessary to bar hiding the Deer on a ridge and among stones, because in one case arrows which missed were lost in the bushes and in the other they were broken.

They played this game so much that they soon found a new difficulty.  The woods were full of paper trails, and there was no means of deciding which was the old and which the new.  This threatened to end the fun altogether.  But Yan hit on the device of a different colour of paper.  This gave them a fresh start, but their supply was limited.  There was paper everywhere in the woods now, and it looked as though the game was going to kill itself, when old Caleb came to pay them a visit.  He always happened round as though it was an accident, but the boys were glad to see him, as he usually gave some help.

“Ye got some game, I see,” and the old man’s eye twinkled as he noted the dummy, now doing target duty on the forty-yard range.  “Looks like the real thing.  Purty good—­purty good.”  He chuckled as he learned about the Deer hunt, and a sharp observer might have discerned a slight increase of interest when he found that it was not Sam Raften that was the “crack” hunter.