Chapter 320 - 262: Picked Up a Dog
Today was the sixth day of the Yongxing Brigade’s spring hunt.
It had to be said, after five days of hunting, signs of wild animals in the surrounding hundred-li stretch of mountains had grown scarce.
The animals that were gone had either been killed or had sensed the danger and gone into hiding.
On their way up the mountain, Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu spotted some animal tracks. But despite scouring the mountainside all morning, they hadn’t managed to bag anything.
This prompted Li Baoyu to sigh, lamenting how great it would be if they had a dog with them.
After all, a dog could not only follow a trail but also track by scent, whereas a human could only follow the physical footprints of an animal.
That made things difficult.
Take Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu, for example. They had been following a set of wild boar tracks for over an hour without even a glimpse of the animal, but then they stumbled upon a fresh trail of roe deer prints.
Noticing the roe deer tracks were quite fresh, the two followed them over a mountain and across a ridge. As they were heading downhill, just about to reach the bottom of the gully, Zhao Jun spotted them. On the opposite slope, a group of four roe deer, having likely just finished nibbling on tender buds, was continuing on its way up.
The four roe deer, a mix of large and small, were nearly four hundred meters away from Zhao Jun in a straight line.
Watching the roe deer transition from a slow walk to long strides, Zhao Jun knew it would be difficult to catch up if he went down into the gully and then back up the other side.
So he unslung his rifle, brought it to his cheek to aim, but felt the angle was off. He lowered the weapon and glanced around.
He then leaned against a large Daqing poplar, sank down, and sat right at the base of its trunk.
He brought the rifle to his cheek again, aimed at the striding roe deer on the opposite slope, flicked off the safety, and pulled the trigger.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
He fired three shots in quick succession without taking his eye from the sights.
Through the Gun Star, Zhao Jun could see that his first shot hit nothing, and neither did his second.
But the third bullet, after passing through the base of one roe deer’s neck, struck the hind leg of another.
He’d skewered them, bagging two with one lucky shot.
Seeing one of the deer drop, Zhao Jun shouted to Li Baoyu, "Baoyu, hurry! Go gut that deer."
While Zhao Jun had been aiming, Li Baoyu had spotted a small, suitably thick tree nearby. He’d promptly used his knife to cut it down for a club and was just readying his blade for the kill, thinking the deer might still be alive and require a finishing blow.
But now, hearing Zhao Jun tell him to gut the deer, there was no need for that. Li Baoyu took off down the slope, knife in one hand and his new club in the other.
But after just a few steps, Li Baoyu turned back. "Brother, shouldn’t we chase the injured one first?"
Zhao Jun pointed ahead. "Its leg is broken, how far can it run? Hurry up and gut the dead one. If you let it sit, the meat will spoil."
Compared to a wild boar or a Black Bear, a roe deer is much easier to gut. Li Baoyu was quick, and by the time Zhao Jun made his way over, he had already gutted the deer and bled it out.
"Just leave it here for now," Zhao Jun told Li Baoyu. "Let’s hurry after the other one. It won’t get far going uphill."
Four-legged animals rely on their hind legs for power when going uphill. With a broken hind leg, the roe deer couldn’t have gone far.
The pair had chased about three to five hundred meters uphill when a sudden gust of wind swept through the mountains. Not only did it make the branches RUSTLE, but it also carried the sound of frantic SQUEALING.
That was the sound a roe deer only makes when it’s being attacked.
Hearing this, Zhao Jun’s brow furrowed. Li Baoyu asked, "Brother, what now?"
Someone had obviously intercepted the deer up ahead. If Zhao Jun went over now, the ownership of the kill would be up for debate.
But Zhao Jun was the one who had broken its leg, and there was no way he was going to just let it go. This wasn’t about the meat; it was about the rules.
"Let’s go," Zhao Jun said to Li Baoyu, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and striding uphill.
They hadn’t gone much farther when they saw a black dog with its jaws clamped onto a roe deer’s rump. A section of the deer’s lower hind leg was missing.
So the deer hadn’t been claimed by another hunter, but had been caught by a dog.
But as Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu scanned the area, they couldn’t see the dog’s owner anywhere.
This, too, changed things.
If the owner had been present, the two parties would split the deer fifty-fifty.
But with the owner absent, the rule was to kill the deer and gut it immediately.
If the owner still hadn’t shown up by the time it was gutted, you were to leave enough of the entrails for the dog to eat and then drag the carcass away. You didn’t have to leave any of the meat.
However, if the owner arrived during the gutting, you had to give them a hindquarter.
Seeing no one around, Zhao Jun glanced at Li Baoyu. Li Baoyu understood immediately. He didn’t ready his blade; instead, he put away his Invasion Blade, gripped the club with both hands, and stepped forward. He brought it down hard on the back of the deer’s head. THWACK! THWACK!
With a final, mournful cry, the roe deer’s body went limp and collapsed onto the snow.
Li Baoyu stuck his club in the snow, then waved both hands forward to shoo the dog away.
Surprisingly, the dog wasn’t wary of strangers at all. As soon as Li Baoyu shooed it, it released the deer, lay down nearby, and watched him with a wagging tail, waiting to be fed.
"Brother," Li Baoyu said, turning to look at Zhao Jun with a grin. "This is a good dog. Not scared of people at all, huh?"
"Yeah." Zhao Jun walked over. Seeing that the black dog didn’t snarl at him either, he agreed it was a decent animal. He immediately said to Li Baoyu, "Baoyu, gut it and feed the dog."
"How much should I give it?" Li Baoyu asked.
Zhao Jun thought for a moment before replying, "Just enough to take the edge off its hunger. It’s still early. What if its owner plans on hunting this afternoon? It wouldn’t be right for us to feed his dog so much that it won’t work."