Francis couldn’t believe his eyes. He reloaded at once and walked up to the buck. No second shot was needed; the antelope had been hit in the back of the head, just below the horn base. Francis grabbed him by the horns and began pulling him toward the slide. It was a long haul up, and he was sweating by the time he reached the top where Mr. Grimes was waiting.

“Well, Mr. Tucket. You seem to have done all right down there.” The mountain man was grinning, and he fetched a knife from his saddlebag. He made one neat cut down the middle of the dead buck and removed the entrails. He saved the liver and heart and left the rest. “The coyotes will get the leavings. I wasn’t sure how you’d do. You can tell a lot about a man when he’s hunting antelope. It’s the waiting. A lot of ’em get nervous and start fidgeting around. I’ve known grown men to actually stand up and scare ’em away.”

Francis blushed again. “Well,” he began, “I can see how something like that could happen. I mean, I almost …”

“Generally speaking, though,” the mountain man went on as though he hadn’t heard, “if a man makes it through once, you don’t have to worry about him. He’ll pull his load when the time comes, and that’s all you can ask of any man.”

“I was a little nervous,” Francis said quietly.

“Well, it didn’t hurt your shooting a lot,” Mr. Grimes said, pointing toward the antelope’s head. “I’d call that a right smart shot.”

“I thought I’d missed.”

Mr. Grimes nodded. “That happens sometimes. You never know till the smoke clears.” There was something about his voice; he seemed to be talking around something. Francis caught it but didn’t say anything. By that time Mr. Grimes had a small, smokeless fire going and had spitted the liver.

They ate it when its edge was just turning brown, cutting it in thin strips with Mr. Grimes’s knife. Francis thought he had never tasted anything so rich and delicious.

After eating the liver, they returned to the camp by the stream and roasted a whole rear quarter of the buck. Then they spent most of the rest of the afternoon and evening cutting off slices and eating them. By dark, they had consumed close to twelve pounds of fresh meat. Mr. Grimes wrapped the rest in the main part of the antelope’s skin and put it in one of the mule packs.

“It doesn’t really get good for two or three days,” he said. “And if it’s well wrapped, it’ll keep for more than a week.”

They doused the fire and turned in early. Mr. Grimes was asleep as soon as his head hit the saddle.