was in no good humor. Henry shook
his head to indicate that he was no game for them, and Paul understood.
Whatever they killed they intended to put in the canoe, and then clean and
dress it on the island. The angry monster, an outcast from some herd, was
safe.

The buffalo drank, puffing and snorting between drinks, and then stamped
his way back into the forest. Still the hunters waited in ambush. Some
other animal, with a long, sinuous body, crept down to the margin and
lapped the water. Paul did not know what it was, and he could not break
the silence to ask the others; but after drinking for a few minutes it
drew its long, lithe body back through the undergrowth, and passed out of
sight. Then nothing came for a while, because this was a ferocious beast
of prey, and to the harmless creatures of the wilderness the air about the
drinking place was filled for a space with poison.

But as the wind continued to blow lightly from the south, the dread odor
passed away and the air became pure and fresh again. Back in the deeps of
the forest the timid creatures found courage once more, and they crept
down to the water's edge to slake their thirst. But they were small, and
the ambushed marksmen in the boat still waited, silent and motionless.
Paul saw them sometimes, and sometimes he did not. Then his eyes would
wander to the surface of the lake, now pale, heaving silver in the
moonlight, and to the wall of black forest that circled it round.

A heavier step came again, and a light puff! puff! Paul knew now that a
great animal was approaching, and that the timid little ones would give it
room. He looked with all his eyes, and a magnificent stag stepped into the
moonlight, antlers erect, waiting and listening for a moment before he
bowed his head to drink. Paul almost leaped up in the boat as a rifle
cracked beside him, and he saw the stag spring into the air and fall dead,
with his feet in the water.

Henry and Ross promptly shoved the boat from the bushes, and the three of
them lifted the body into it, disposing it in the center with infinite
care. Then, with food enough to last for days, they rowed back across the
lake to the haunted island. Shif'less Sol and Jim Hart, with their rude
tackle, had succeeded in catching four fish, of a species unknown to Paul,
but large and to all appearances succulent.

"We'll eat the fish to-morrow, because they won't keep," said Sol, "but
Jim Hart here kin jerk the venison. It will give