PEYTON'S BAG

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 December 1904, Page 194

PEYTON'S BAG

ELL, if that isn't rotJ ten luck/ said Tony Lascelles. " When we've given that fool Peyton the Chimney, too \" Walt growled his disgust in his throat, for it was over strong for selected words ; and Peyton, whom

Tony's hurried rising had trampled into the earth, fell out of the tentopening less than half-clothed, and disconnectedly wrath. " Stag/ said Walt in curt answer. Peyton swept the universe with his glasses, picked up on the Chimney hill that which the other men watched bare-eyed, and purred in fat delight. From their feet the snow-grass blew in ruddy ripples to the tail of a birch bush that stuck to the steep hill-side in black density. Topping the bush, splayed out lean spurs, and rounded gullies, and straightedged ravines. Behind all, and crowning half the earth, notched ranges rose white to the flushing sky — all to make background for one stag of the fourth year. He stood, monstrous and tense with life, on the snub nose of) a bluff, and belled out his challenge to the world and to the sun that was coming, up to listen. The antlers showed like naked branches of a

tree, and his coat was sleeked with the night's dew. " It's my beat !'' Peyton snatched his things from every-whither in blankest confusion. " You said last night 1 could have the Chimney, it's a royal, 1 tell you. It's a bubbub - blessed fourteen - pointer. I counted — an' we've never got a sniff of more than a ten- tine before. I don't want any breakfast. Where's my " " Oh, go slow, for Heaven's sake !" said Tony in the wrath of a hunter. " You won't hit a hill unless it's the size of a mountain if you go losing your head that way. Keep cool, can't you, you silly owl ? Of course it's your beat. Who said it wasn't ? And don't you go shooting all over the shop, Peyton. A Mauser's too funny for that kind of thing." It was Peyton's boast that he had shot eighteen men with the identical carbine that he was now scratching out of the case. That was in the Boer war, and no man on Mindoorie believed it. Peyton did not,, himself. But to require of a man that he should make a story and believe it is rank ingratitude. Peyton had -turned up at Mindoorie some three months back, giving Lane to understand that they were of one blood, and might, with mutual happiness, be of one purse also. He stuck like a burr, and

when Walt and Tony Lascelles agreed to take their holiday together that they might shoot red deer in Otago Central, Peyton offered to go with them. " C'n yer shoot ?" demanded Walt then, with his teeth on an oiled rag. He was trying to sluice some of the rust off his old .303 with the broken leaf. Peyton was really angry. " Haven't I told you that 1 shot eighteen men " " But there's jest two on us/ Walt shook his head gravely. "Not 'nuff meat fur yer ter feed on. Reckon Tony 'n me c'n do wi'out all that killin', too/ Then it was that Peyton sloughed his superiority, and gained grudging permission to help stalk some of the roughest deer country outside Scotland. Tony cherished his disgust, and gave the word in the whares that he would knock the eternal stuffing out of Peyton before he brought him back. " Makes me sick," he said. " Always gassing about his Lyman sights, an' his range-finders, an' his drifts. I'll plunk a hole into him with my old girl one of these days, an' not whip the cat over it either." But Peyton's mouth was filled with othes? words this morning in sight of tho Chimney. '' 'Wind'c ' " : owin' up to him, isn't it ? Fffom xne off., isn't it ? If I go straight ahead I'll land him, won't I ? Not ? Which way'd I better go, then ? Nearly a mile off, isn't he ?" To the lay eye it might have been a mile as the crow flies. The two who had been that way before knew that it was a five-mile stalk over unkindly country, and that Peyton was not in condition to face it. But it was impossible to say so. Walt jerked a thumb in the direction of a dimpled hollow at the bluff-foot. A half-score hinds and nob'bers were moving in it. " You look out they don't give the alarm. Come up out'n the bush

careful. Great Scott, man ; don't go off wi'out any tucker." Peyton swept cold meat and damper into his pocket, scudded away through the burnt timber that began the bush, and dived out of sight like a scared rabbit. "Fat lot o' heads he'll git "; Walt was fiddling with the fire. " He'll git blown in ten minits — 'n then he'll git lost— 'n then we'll hey ter take half the night nosin' him. out. What'd we let him come fur, I wonner ?" " So's we could teach him — things," said Tony in direct-sent wisdom. '' He's got to learn that he isn't blooming lord of everybody, and J'm going to teach him." " How ?'" asked Walt, sceptically. "' Lots of ways. First of all — he'll never get that head. It's a sixteen-pointer, too, only he forgot the two little bottom ones that you can't see from a distance. You know it's a sixteen, Walt ?" 'Course. 'N the on'y one we're like ter see, by the look o' the last few days. Season's well enough advanced, too. Well ?" " Well, said Tony, eating damper rapidly. "' He'll never sight it again. I'm going up to get the beggar myself. Peyton'll never know. An' I'll come back down that gully away to southa rd." " Don't yer be a fool." Walt was cramming cartridges into the breast of his shirt, but he let a handful drop at his word. "' Peyton'll be rakin' the landskip 'up ter two thousand. I know his breed. 'N he might hit yer 'cause he von't bu aimin' at yer. Jest don't yer I c so ratty, Tony." " All serene." Tony collected necessaries, and loped oft' downwind, flinging back a caution. " Don't you give me away, Walt. And mind you rag Peyton when he doesn't bring in a head. ' The tasselled snowgrass dripped with dew, and where the sun drew up the fresh, sharp breath of the earth Tony ran light as a hare,

with something like quicksilver in liis veins. '' Good job for me I'm in such first-class nick/ he murmured, cuddling his rifle in his arm-pit. " Peyton will be snorting like any grampus in that bush. Peyton, dear boy ; I'm goin' round the end of it, and then I'll beat you hollow." He took the bush where it thinned into dead tree-clumps knotted with clematis and supplejack and all other vines. Half-a-mile away, the tails of those vines were laying snares for Peyton, and catching him every time. But that was where the native nettle grew so thickly and so fiercely that it flayed Peyton whether he came to the ground or not. The sun rode gorgeously over the eastern ranges ; 'but a tui had sighted him first from the swaying top of a three-hundred-foot birch, and was already ringing his liquid notes down to the waking ferns by the brown creeks. Tony trotted like a mustering dog up the ascent where it steepened in a scented muddle of burnt-out treeboles made sliprery with mosses and spongy with the soft peaty collection of years. Then it became necessary to slir<>' the rifle and swing, hand over hand, up the vines that depended from rocky frontlets. The bush was muguy and hot, and once, when he lay Hat on a scarp and waited for breath, a wild sheep burst through the undergrowth with a five-year fleece on it. Tt sprang away up-hill as a deer moves, and Tony cast hate at it in broken words. For— being a sheep, and therefore, the least sporting animal in the world — it was quite likely to run until it gave the alarm to the sixteen-pointer where he probably feel still on the 'bluff. " Peyton'll be sweating all right/ grunted Tony, shaking his dripping head. "My aunt!" 'It'll be a snorter 'bout mid-day !" He crashed out into the oDen, and found his feet amons 1 the dried

tangle of burnt bush which makes the very nastiest stalking country in all the world. For in air that is absolutely clear and still, the snap of a stick under the boot rings like a rifle-shot on the flat. Tony slid through the rubbish with cautious heels and toes. His heart thumped against his side, and his eyes were contracted to .22 calibre. For the salt-lick to rightward dazzled, and the flinty hogback that sprung from it winked with a thousand fleams. He had the whole beautiful young earth to himself up here in the wide clear morning ; and it is only the man who serves another knows the added glory of riding to his own beat entirely, with no care for the remainder of the world. Over a low seductive hill Tony fell with a clatter of shingle on a house-party of hinds and young stays that had lately shed their antlers. A big. moth-eaten mother of the herd sprang out of the ruck and began to cough at him. Tony called her names, and retreated crab-wise. But he made haste to climb the ridge beyond her — it was flint, and scarified his hands— for the fear that her anger should have disturbed her lord where he browsed. It was from the top of the ridge that Tony saw liim, and being somewhat exhausted, rolled oft' the sky-line, murmuring weakly : " If Peyton comes along now, I'll lay him out." The stag fed slowly down the bluff side, and the muscles rippled in sunlight over a massive shoulder and well-set ribs. His head was purely perfect. He raised it once, and Tony shuddered in soul-sick terror. But there was no alarm in the easy, powerful movements that brought him nearer— nearer. Tony's rifle felt alive in his hand. Undoubtedly its spirit also strained with the lust of slaughter. Said Tony then, " He's mine ! Mine !" and straightway trod on a dead stick. It snapped, and in less than

a breath the stag scoured up wind, carrying a bullet behind his off shoulder. Tony slipped in another as he ran. He was cursing his clumsiness, and fully prepared to follow through Otago's heart and ribs to the Western Sea if the brute led there. Tony had the lungs and legs of a musterer, and his second wind found him undistressed. He took knoll and sharp descent and hideous -'baulking ridge with firm - shut mouth and quivering nostrils. " 1 hit ! I'll swear I hit. By Jupiter ! He's down ! Oh, the rotten — ■-" The beast came to his feet again with the hesitation of a new-fired bullet, and Tony put his whole mind-power into his legs. " If he doesn't jump some beastly river L bed or other, I'm bound to drop him soon or late. A hare runs a half-mile after it's dead. I shouldn't " Then over a spur a full hundred chain nearer the stag rose Peyton, who fell on his knee and began pumping lead into the gully after the approved manner of a slayer of men. The black figure on the knife-edge was like the devil who comes up through a trap-door in " Faust," and Tony cursed it while absolute despair shook him on his feet. For beyond all doubt, the Chimney and all pertaining to it were Peyton's while the pact of the night still held. Peyton splintered a rock, and pushed in a new T clip before he gave chase. But that did not matter. Death had charge of the stag, and when he took the life Peyton would unquestionably take the glory — and the head. " I can prove it's mine," sobbed Tony, galloping through the shadeless glare. " Peyton uses soft-nosed bullets. I'll show him " Then he remembered that by his honour he must not prove it. Peyton had no wind, and Tony closed up rapidly. And the back

view of labouring body was better to him than medicine. The stag's pace slowed to an uneven trot ; but he was four valleys away, making for the bush that led into the unknown. Down a steep narrow gut Tony drew to the lead. But he ran in cover of matakuri and manuka that Peyton might not see. The quarry was his only if Peyton fell out. And this though he knew of a surety that Peyton had not hit. Peyton roared up the next rise, and rolled down it. But the stagveered to drink at a crystal basin set in flax marsh below, and the action pricked him forward on an unsteady gait. And at this moment both men would have given all the days of their lives to sit on those mighty branching horns and saw them" away from the gleamingneck. " Plop, plop," went Peyton cheerfully. " Plop. Plop. Plop !" " Always said those Lyman sights were no good for fast' work." Tony was rapidly crawling nearer. " Either that or the fellow can't shoot worth a tinker's benediction. Poor brute ! He's water-logged, sure enough. He'll croak: 'fore longnow." The end came swiftly. A slip had scored a wide track out of the sheer bush some hundred yards to northward, and on the red clay breast of it the red deer's life left the body with a roar of defiance. Peyton pawed up to give thanks over what remained, and Tony sat below, loathing all things created, and Peyton in particular. But presently curiosity over-rode pride, and he climbed up to locate the one good shot that had won the game for another. Peyton was sickeningly bumptious, and so self-engrossed that he did not ask Tony's business on his beat. He put his finger in the little round hole behind the shoulder, and demanded praise. " Only had two shots at him,"'heexplained. " And this one that

nicked him was a clear thousandyarder." Tony grunted , aware that to men of Peyton's calibre such things as honour and truth carry no weight. " Pity you haven't had the training I've had/ ended Peyton. "Er —how d'you get the brute's head off ?" Tony showed, touching the beautiful thing- lovingly ; for, when all was said, it was still his by his right hand's cunning. Peyton had not the instincts of a gentleman. He was purely and unrelievedly a bounder, and Tony's senses were raw to savageness before the head was oft" and set on Peyton's back that he might struggle camp ward with it. The miles to be passed were many ; the ground was incredibly rous2"h ; the fresh breeze of morning had forged the still heat of noonday. Peyton's joints were loosed by exhaustion, and when he flagged and fell, Tony's tongue scourged him to the labour again. Tony was getting such small consolation out of this as the situation held, and he chuckled when Peyton grew a deep plum-colour and the veins of his neck swelled. The burdened man stumbled; flung the stark thin«- from him, and grovelled. " Tony — oh, I say! Do carry it a bit. Please. Just a mile — half, then. Till I get my second wind. Do. old chap I" He hesitated 'before Tony's expressionless face. " T'll pay you for it," he said. " Oh, you almighty bounder \" cried Tony's heart, but his lips distilled cold scorn. " You say it's your kill ? Well then ; you'll lump it yourself. I've nothing to do with your beastly "arrangements. Why didn't you drive him home first V Then Peyton, having an assortment of languages at command, applied them freely, until Tony's desire for direct blows shrunk him top flabby- penitence. At the pool in the flax-sw r amp they drank and

fed. The halt sent the sun well to the westing, but it did not greatly refresh Peyton. The very marrow of the man had dripped from him ; his knees shook, and he crowed in his breath. A clipped quarter-mile further and the head pitched on its raw neck into the bracken. Tony's eyes flooded with a sudden glorious hope. " Peyton, are you coming back for this to-morrow ?" Peyton staggered on blindly. "Ne— never. Ne — never, I tell you." " Peyton ! Do you give up all claim to this head ?" " V— yes. Don't talk of it. It makes me sick " " Then I'll take it home myself," said Tony in solemn joy. Tt was a simple thing now. So simple that he wondered he had not foreseen it. The matter could wait until Peyton left, and then all Southland men should learn— breathing envy—that Tony Lascelles had shot a sixteen-pointer in Otago Central. He heaved up the head and trudged forward. " You bullock !'' growled Peyton, stumbling after. But Tony's cup of delight ran over. What though the raw skin flapped his neck, and the unhandiness of the burden taxed his muscles in many new-learned places. Those antlers were his. His very own. And moreover, Peyton had already borne the burden half the distance. This was a pleasure to be rolled on the tongue until Tony should be an old man. His serenity was unbroken, and his limbs ached bitterly when they made the tent in the firelight. Tony cast himself down straightway, and his chest laboured like an ungreased crank . Walt dropped on a knee in plain admiration, and Peyton, being partially recovered, pulled a hand from his trouser-pocket and held out silver to Tony. " Thanks, Tony. Don't know how I'd have got the thing back by

"myself. A good head, isn't it, Walt ? Worth a decent tip, eh ?" Peyton had been assorting moves for the last hour. Tony was unprepared. " You swine \" he shouted, and sent the handful spinning into the snow-grass. " What the devil " It was Walt who put his arms round Tony, and forced the silence necessary for Peyton's explanation. This was simple. " 1 offered to pay Tony for carrying it, and at first he said he Avouldn't. But when I got done and chucked it he said he would. What's he making the row about ? Didn't I offer him enough V " Yer'd better not go clean off yer head, Tony," observed Walt, sympathetically. " What yer got ter say, now ?" " It's mme — mine. He said lie

gave up all claim, confound him — " " Great Scott, man ! Haven't you a better idea of the ethics of sport than that ? How could you set up a head shot by another man? J want it,, and I'll go to law sooner than lose it. What were you doing on my beat, any way ? We call that land of thing poaching at Home." Tony looked at the four sides of this thing, and saw that he was beaten. " You've as much right to it as to your eighteen men," he said. *' You can put 'em all in one bag. Let me go, Walt. I'm not going to touch the pig. Wouldn't tiouch him with — without a disinfectant. Oh, shut up, can't you I" " What was the way you was tl'oin' ter teach Peyton, ther: ?" enquired Walt afterwards. But Tony Lascelles held his peace.