“How you want to kill him?” asked another Indian.
Sam’s quick rejoinder was: “I want to spear him, of course.”
His enthusiasm was contagious, and the Indians said:
“All right; we will try.”
So word was signalled to the other boats that the one in which Sam was would try the gallant old fellow. The Indians in the other canoes heard this with pleasure, and ceased for a time from their pursuits to see the struggle.
The Indians in charge of Sam’s canoe wisely explained to him how, if they were possibly able to get him alongside of the deer, to try to spear him across the spinal column as near the head as possible. They also took the precaution to have a couple of guns and axes handy where, in case of emergency, they could be instantly utilised.
When the great reindeer saw them coming down so boldly toward him he at once accepted the situation, and leaving a number of deer that with him had been keeping together for some time he gallantly turned to face them.
When within twenty or thirty yards, as decided upon by the Indian, they suddenly veered to the right, and kept paddling in eccentric circles around him, keeping him as nearly as possible about the same distance in the centre. That he could not reach the canoe and annihilate it as easily as he did the other one seemed to very much irritate him, and for a time he was furious with rage. Yet in spite of his fury they quietly, yet warily, watched him, and kept up their circular movements about him. After a time, seeing it to be an utter impossibility to catch them, he turned and endeavoured to swim to the shore.
Now the attacked became the aggressors, and so, rapidly, the canoe followed in his wake. Several times they tried to draw up alongside to spear him, but a sudden turn of that well-antlered head was enough to cause them to draw back in a hurry. But something must be done, or he would speedily be at the land. So another canoe was signalled to make a feint to attack him from the other side. The one in which Frank was paddling with his Indians soon came up, and when told what was desired of them quickly responded.
The deer, thus worried by the two, had hardly a fair chance, but he gallantly kept up the unequal struggle for quite a time. Sam’s canoemen at length saw an unguarded place and so dashed in alongside the big fellow, and at the right minute the Indian steering called out to Sam: