“Take your stations,” added Bob Budd, excitedly; “we’re going to have the tallest kind of fun; I’ll stay here, and you—”  
But his friends did not wait for further directions. Tom Wagstaff sprang up, gun in hand, and went threshing among the trees and through the undergrowth toward the path on the left (as they faced the mountain ridge), while Jim McGovern was equally prompt in hurrying to the trail on the right.
 
Within a few seconds after the first baying of the hound fell upon their ears Bob Budd found himself alone.
 
“They’re such lunkheads,” he said to himself, “that the two together don’t know enough to hit the side of a barn ten feet off. I hope the deer will take the middle path so that I can show them how the thing is done, which reminds me that it is time to take another drink.”
 
Meanwhile the dog Hero was getting in his work in brilliant style.
 
The first sounds of the hound showed that he was over the mountain , and within the following minute it was apparent to all that he was approaching, his baying rapidly growing more distinct.
 
This confirmed what his owner had said: he had held his peace until beyond the wild animal, so that the latter, when he awoke to the alarming fact that the hound was after him, naturally turned in the opposite direction, and was, therefore, coming toward the three hunters, though, of course, it must remain undecided for a time which trail he would take.
 
The baying of Hero continued at brief , and drew near so fast that each of the three hunters knew the game was sure to pass near him, and one of them was to be favored with a shot before he was a quarter of an hour older.
 
Which would it be?
 
“I think I’m to be the lucky chap,” reflected the delighted Tom, over on the left, “and I’ll show Bob, who thinks he knows so much, that some things can be done as well as others. What the is the matter with me?”
 
This impatient was caused by Tom’s discovery that a singular nervousness had taken possession of him and was rapidly increasing. The belief that a wild animal was bearing down upon him and would soon break cover him as he had never been affected before.
 
He found himself trembling in every limb, while his teeth as though he were shaking with the ague. Angered at his weakness, he strove to overcome it, but, as is the rule at such times, though he was able to check himself for an instant, he was powerless to master his strange weakness.
 
I suppose I hardly need tell you that Tom was suffering from that nervousness known as “ fever.”
 
Experienced hunters laugh at amateurs when they see them overtaken by the disease (if it be proper to call it that), which never attacks them.
 
“Confound it!” muttered Tom, “I wonder whether Bob or Jim is affected this way; if I don’t get better, I hope the deer won’t come in sight of me.”
 
Nevertheless, it quickly became apparent that the animal had taken the path on the left, and was approaching the impatient hunter, who had stationed himself behind the trunk of a large oak, with his gun at full cock, ready to let fly with both barrels the instant he saw the chance.
 
Each of the trails to which I have were traversed so rarely that they showed only dimly, and were overhung by the luxuriant undergrowth and branches growing beside them. This prevented Tom seeing very far along the path, so that his ear gave him knowledge of the whereabouts of the animal before the eye located him.
 
The youth was still striving desperately to get the mastery of the buck fever, when he heard the crashing tread of the game, which was advancing along the trail, and unless he wheeled aside would pass within twenty feet of where he stood.
 
Suddenly a was discernible among the vegetation, and the next instant Tom caught sight of the antlers of a noble buck, who was sailing along with such speed that the next second his shoulders and body burst into sight.
 
He was running fast with that peculiar lope natural to the animal, and no doubt was panic-stricken by the baying of the hound, not far behind and gaining fast.
 
The sight of the royal game Tom’s nervousness. He compressed his lips and held his breath, with the resolve to calm his or die in the attempt.
 
But finding it beyond his power, he stepped from behind the tree, and when the buck was no more than fifty feet away, and coming head on, he let fly with both barrels.
 
Had the animal been perched in the topmost branches of the beech-tree on the left he would have received a mortal hurt, but as it was, he was not touched by a single pellet of the numberless shot that were sent hurtling and among the leaves.
 
“Confound you!” muttered Tom, aw............