Alton regretted he had waited so long, and dropping the deer sprang backwards, feeling for the sling of his rifle.
He was, however, a second too late, for there was a thin red flash amidst the undergrowth, and he reeled with a stinging pain somewhere about his knee.

It yielded and grew almost useless under him, and while his rifle fell with a rattle he lurched into a thicket of withered fern.

For a moment he lay still, his face awry with pain, and groaned as he strove to draw his leg up beneath him.

It felt numbed and powerless, and, desisting, he strove to collect his scattered wits, realizing that he had never needed them more than he did just then.
The rifle had fallen outside the thicket where the forest was more open and there was a sprinkling of snow, and Alton knew that an attempt to recover it would probably be fatal.

He was equally convinced that the man who had shot him would not have come out on such an errand without his magazine full, or leave his task unfinished.