Annie became silent after his chiding. Murdock was correct and she had forgotten that she was in the wild. They walked for quite some time before Murdock stopped and knelt down. He took out the waterskin and handed it to Annie, who drank deeply. She hadn’t noticed until she stopped that she had been sweating profusely. As she handed the waterskin back to Murdock, he held a finger to his lips and then pointed ahead of them. She raised herself up a little to look over a slight rise and saw a small herd of deer. To her, they looked to be a hundred yards away, but even at that distance, they were huge. She did notice that the slight breeze was in her face and that none of the deer seemed to know that they were there.
“Ready?” Murdock asked quietly. Annie nodded that she was sufficiently reste
