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"Well, well," said Mr Chisholm, who was a jocular sort of young fellow and never hard on a man, besides which he knew Draper's crusty way, "tell us what you know, then." "Very good, sir," replied our old shellback of a coxswain. "Then, I knows, sir, the monsoon's on the shift, and we're agoin' to have a blow from the nor'ard afore dark." "What do you advise our doing, coxen?"
While Coxen was running over in his mind every conceivable scheme for getting out of his dilemma, the last thing he would have thought of actually happened.
His next, due to the season, was to rush upon the man and smite him. Then he realized that he himself was not the object of the man's stealthy approach. He saw that what the hunter was intent upon was that buck out in the field. Thereupon he sank back on his great black haunches to watch the course of events. Little did Sam Coxen guess of those cunning red eyes that followed him as he crawled by.
The bear came on cautiously; and the great branch bent low under his weight, till Coxen was not more than a couple of feet from the top of the young fir. Then, nervously letting go, he dropped, caught the thick branches in his desperate clutch, and clung secure. The big branch, thus suddenly freed of Coxen's substantial weight, sprang back with such violence that the bear almost lost his hold.
Fancy, then, his dismay when, on questioning his butler, an old coxen of his own, and after going down to inspect in person, he found that there was scarcely more than a dozen of port in the wine-cellar.
As the river turned to the eastward, I determined to trace it up to its head; and set out with Mr. Gilbert and Brown to examine the country around the range which I had observed some days before and named "Coxen's Peak and Range," in honour of Mr. Coxen of Darling Downs.
Was this a harmless passer-by, or a would-be trespasser on his new domain of cabbages? On second glance, he decided that it looked like the noisy figure which had waved defiance from the top of the fence. Realizing this, a red gleam came into the buck's eye. He wheeled, stamped, and shook his antlers in challenge. At this moment, having got a good aim, Coxen pulled the trigger.
At the point where the cover came nearest to the cabbage patch, Coxen found himself still out of range. Cocking his gun, he strode some twenty paces into the open, paused, and took a long, deliberate aim. Catching sight of him the moment he emerged, the buck stood for some moments eyeing him with sheer curiosity.
As Sam Coxen sprang for the lowest branch and swung himself up, the bear lumbered out from his thicket and reared himself menacingly against the trunk. The buck, who had just cleared the fence, stopped short. It was clearly his turn now to play the part of spectator. When Coxen looked down and saw his new foe his heart swelled with a sense of injury.
Then, still running, he skirted the fields till the cabbage patch came once more in sight, with the marauder still enjoying himself in the midst of it. At this point the long-dormant instinct of the hunter began to awake in Sam Coxen. Everything that he had ever heard about stalking big game flashed into his mind, and he wanted to apply it all at once.
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