“I think so, too,” said Merritt, as the stag buck lowered its head and its big eyes became filled with an angry fire.
“Quick, Tubby!” he cried the next instant, “it’s going to charge!”
Hardly had he voiced the warning before, with a furious half-bellow, half-snort, the buck rushed at them at top speed, its antlers lowered menacingly.
CHAPTER XX.
THE CANOES FOUND.
Merritt made a spring up the side of the steep-walled little ravine. He succeeded in grabbing an outgrowing bush and drawing himself up to a ledge about ten feet above the ground. Tubby followed him. But the fat boy’s weight proved too much for the slender roots of the plant. It ripped out of the cleft in which it grew, and Tubby, with a frightened cry, went rolling over and over down the steep acclivity. He fell right in the path of the advancing stag. The creature saw him and prepared to gore him with its horns. But just as Tubby was giving himself up for lost, an inspiration seized Merritt.
A big stone lay close at hand. He grabbed it up and hurled it with all his might at the buck. The lad’s experience on the baseball diamond stood him in good stead at this trying moment.
The rock, with all the power of Merritt’s healthy young muscles behind it, struck the buck between the eyes. The animal staggered and snorted. For one critical instant it hesitated, its sharp forefeet almost on the recumbent fat boy. Then, with a shrill sort of whinny of terror, it swung, as swiftly and gracefully as a cat, and clattered off, running at top speed.
Merritt lost no time in clambering down to Tubby, who was sitting up and looking about him in a comical dazed way.
“H-h-h-has it gog-g-g-gone?” he stammered.
“I should say so,” laughed Merritt, “it stood not on the order of its going, but—got! as they say in the classics.”