<TITLE>19. Par 194-203</TITLE>L-194   We carried a--a little thermos bottle full of hot chocolate, which it gives you energy, and a sandwich. And we usually set down. And when we go up the top the mountains, then he cut down over one range, and I'd go down the other; coming back, get in camp sometime that night. So I thought... It was about eleven o'clock, or something, and I thought he would just sit down on a little snowbank there, a little place, opening about twice the size of this room. And he set down there. I thought we was going to eat our lunch, and I started get my lunch out.

L-195 And he pulled this little whistle out, and he was going to blow that little whistle. And deers are very scary like that, they will live under brush piles and everything, while hunting season is going on. They have to, to survive. And he--he blew this little whistle. And when he did, just across the little opening, a great big doe stood up. Now, the doe is the mother deer, and she stood up. And I looked at her. She was beautiful, and there those big ears and great big brown eyes. And--and she was looking for that baby.

L-196 And he looked up to me, like that. I thought, "You won't do that, Bert, surely you won't." So he slipped the shell up in his rifle. And he was a dead shot.

L-197   And I saw him, he blowed it again. And the mother deer walked right out into that opening, at eleven o'clock in the day. Now, that's unusual. They won't do that, no, especially in hunting season, that time of day, anyhow. She walked out there. Why? She--she was a mother. Her nature was mother. She was a mother at her heart, and her baby was in trouble. And he was calling for her, and she was looking for the baby.

L-198 I thought, "Surely you're not cruel enough to kill that mother looking for her baby!" He looked over at me, like that, and lizard eyes. And he--he took that gun and leveled down. I thought, "Oh, my, surely he won't do that." And that gallant mother walking out there, standing there!

L-199   And when the--the bolt went down on the gun, to lock the shell in the chamber; when the bolt went down, the deer heard the bolt, and she turned and she saw the hunter. He had raised like this to shoot her, and, my, that scope hair right across her loyal heart! I thought, "That big thirty-o-six, hundred and eighty grain bullet, will blow her heart right out of her." I thought, "How can you do that? A mother looking for... And deceiving her, calling like it's her baby. And get her out there and then shoot her, and a loyal heart beating like that, how can you do it? What, how can you be so cruel?" And I seen him level down. And the deer, instead of running like it ordinarily would, she just stood still. She wasn't afraid to die. Her baby was in trouble.

L-200 Now, look, she wasn't putting that on. She wasn't just acting. It was death. See? But she couldn't help it, she was a mother. That was her nature, a mother; and her baby, she was looking for it. It was crying, and she was looking for her baby.

L-201   I just couldn't watch the act take place. I turned my head. I started praying. I said, "Lord Jesus, don't let him do it. Don't let him do it. How can he do it? That poor mother standing there, and he is going to blow her heart out of her." Well, I waited, and the gun never fired.

L-202 And I turned to look, and the barrel was going like this. He couldn't hold it no more. And he turned around, looked at me, and out of those slanted eyes come forth great big tears running down his cheeks. He grabbed the gun and throwed it on the ground. And grabbed me by the trouser leg, on that drift of snow; he said, "Billy, I've had enough of it. I've had enough of it. Lead me to that Jesus you're talking about."

L-203 What was the matter? He saw something real. He saw something that wasn't put on. Oh, if we could only be the Christian that that deer was a mother. See?


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