the light of our torch.

"My companion whispered me that they were the eyes of a deer. I took
sight with my rifle, aiming as nearly as I could midway between the
luminous spots. I pulled trigger, and my true piece cracked like a
whip.

"The report was not loud enough to drown the noises that came back from
the shore. There was a rustling of leaves, followed by a plunge, as of
some body felling in the water.

"Dick turned the head of the dug-out, and paddled her up to the bank.
The torch, blazing brightly, lit up the scene ahead of us, and our eyes
were gratified by the sight of a fine buck, that had fallen dead into
the river. He was about being drawn into the eddy of the current, but
Dick prevented this, and, seizing him by the antlers, soon deposited him
safely in the bottom of the dug-out.

"Our craft was once more headed down stream, and we scrutinised every
winding of the banks in search of another pair of gleaming eyes. In
less than half an hour these appeared, and we succeeded in killing a
second long-tail--a doe--and dragged her also into the boat.

"Shortly after, a third was knocked over, which we found standing out in
the river upon a small point of sand. This proved to be a young
spike-buck, his horns not having as yet branched off into antlers.

"About a quarter of a mile farther down, a fourth, deer was shot at, and
missed, the dug-out having grazed suddenly against a rock just as I was
pulling trigger, thus rendering my aim unsteady.

"I need hardly say that this sport was extremely exciting; and we had
got many miles from the post, without thinking either of the distance or
the fact that we should be under the disagreeable necessity of paddling
the old Flathead's canoe every inch of the way back again. Down stream
it was all plain sailing; and Dick's duty was light enough, as it
consisted merely in keeping the dug-out head foremost in the middle of
the river. The current ran at the rate of three miles an hour, and
therefore drifted us along with sufficient rapidity.

"The first thing that suggested a return to either of us, was the fact
that our pine-knots had run out: Dick had just piled the last of them in
the frying-pan.

"At this moment, a noise sounded in our ears that caused us some
feelings of alarm: it was the noise of falling water. It was not new to
us, for, since leaving the post, we had passed the mouths of several
small streams that debouched into the one upon which we wer