Once when the buck made his rush, Hero, in leaping backward, collided with an obstruction on the ground which caused him to roll over and over, and the formidable antlers touched him; but with inimitable dexterity he regained his feet and escaped the sword-like thrust that grazed his skin.
No escape could have been narrower, but that which the buck met within the same minute was fully as narrow.
It may have been that Hero was a victim to some extent of the impatience which the youths around him felt, for seeing an opportunity he bounded like a cannon-ball from the earth at the throat of the buck.
The latter was quick to read the meaning of the crouching figure which left the ground before he could drop his antlers to receive him, else it would have gone ill for the assailant, but the buck flung his head backward just far enough to save his throat from those merciless fangs.
When it is stated that the flesh of the deer just back of his jaws was nipped by the same teeth which could not get a hold deep enough to be retained, it will be admitted that the fellow could not have had a closer call.
But these furious efforts were far more telling upon the larger animal than upon the dog, which could not have failed to understand that he had only to wait a brief while to have the buck at his mercy, and those teeth, once buried in the throat of the game, would stay there, as I have said, until the last gasp of life departed.
By and by Hero saw a better opening than before and instantly gathered his muscles for a spring.
A few seconds previous to this crisis Jim McGovern had mastered the idea that there was but one thing to do, and that was to take careful aim at the buck and kill him; no quicker means of ending the danger could be devised than that.
He had learned that a good place into which to send the charge, no matter what the species of the animal may he, is just behind the foreleg, where a well-aimed bullet or charge of shot fired at close quarters, is sure to reach the seat of life.
While running his eye along the barrel the buck turned broadside toward Jim, and thrusting one foot forward gave the very opportunity he wanted.