the kangaroo was plain to the boys, for,
as if endowed with human instinct, it now bent down to press poor
Shanter beneath the water, and hold him there till he was drowned.

Rifle saw it, and pressing the sides of his horse, and battling with it
to overcome its dread of the uncanny-looking marsupial, he forced it
right in to the pool, and urged it forward with voice and hand, so as to
get a shot to tell upon Shanter's adversary.

It was hard work, but it had this effect, that it took off the
kangaroo's attention, so that there was a momentary respite for Shanter,
the great brute rising up and raising the black's head above the water,
so that he could breathe again, while, repeating its previous manoeuvre,
the kangaroo kicked out at Rifle, its claw just touching the saddle.

That was enough, the horse reared up, fought for a few moments, pawing
the air, and went over backwards. Then there was a wild splashing, and
Rifle reached the shore without his gun, drenched, but otherwise unhurt,
and the horse followed.

The black's fate would have been sealed, for, free of its assailants,
the kangaroo plunged the poor helpless struggling fellow down beneath
the surface, attentively watching the approach the while of a third
enemy, and ready to launch out one of those terrible kicks as soon as
the boy was sufficiently near.

"Oh, Tim, Tim, fire--fire!" cried Norman, as he saw his cousin wade in
nearer and nearer: "Quick! quick! before Shanter's drowned."

Tim had already paused four yards away, and up to his armpits in water
as he took careful aim, his hands trembling one moment, but firm the
next, as the kangaroo, bending downward with the side of its head to him
and nearly on a level with the water, which rose in violent ebullitions
consequent upon Shanter's struggles, seemed to have a peculiar
triumphant leer in its eyes, as if it were saying: "Wait a bit; it is
your turn next."

It was all the work of a minute or so, but to the two boys on shore it
seemed a horrible time of long suspense, before there was a double
report, the triggers being pulled almost simultaneously. A tremendous
spring right out of the water, and then a splash, which sent it flying
in all directions, before it was being churned up by the struggling
monster, now in its death throes; then, gun in one hand, Shanter's wrist
in the other, Tim waded ashore, dragging the black along the surface,
set free as he had been when those two charges of small sh