“Shortly after, a third was knocked over, which we found standing out in the river upon a small point of sand. This proved to be a young spike-buck, his horns not having as yet branched off into antlers.
“About a quarter of a mile farther down, a fourth, deer was shot at, and missed, the dug-out having grazed suddenly against a rock just as I was pulling trigger, thus rendering my aim unsteady.
“I need hardly say that this sport was extremely exciting; and we had got many miles from the post, without thinking either of the distance or the fact that we should be under the disagreeable necessity of paddling the old Flathead’s canoe every inch of the way back again. Down stream it was all plain sailing; and Dick’s duty was light enough, as it consisted merely in keeping the dug-out head foremost in the middle of the river. The current ran at the rate of three miles an hour, and therefore drifted us along with sufficient rapidity.
“The first thing that suggested a return to either of us, was the fact that our pine-knots had run out: Dick had just piled the last of them in the frying-pan.
“At this moment, a noise sounded in our ears that caused us some feelings of alarm: it was the noise of falling water. It was not new to us, for, since leaving the post, we had passed the mouths of several small streams that debouched into the one upon which we were, in most cases over a jumble of rocks, thus forming a series of noisy rapids. But that which we now heard was directly ahead of us, and must, thought we, be a rapid or fall of the stream itself; moreover, it sounded louder than any we had hitherto passed.
“We lost little time in conjectures. The first impulse of my companion, upon catching the sound, was to stop the progress of the dug-out, which in a few seconds he succeeded in doing; but by this time our torch had shown us that there was a sharp turning in the river, with a long reach of smooth water below. The cascade, therefore, could not be in our stream, but in some tributary that fell into it near the bend.
“On seeing this, Dick turned his paddle, and permitted the dug-out once more to float with the current.
“The next moment we passed the mouth of a good-sized creek, whose waters, having just leaped a fall of several feet, ran into the river, covered with white froth and bubbles. We could see the fall at a little distance, through the branches of the trees; and as we swept on, its foaming sheet reflected the light of our torch like shining metal.
“We had scarcely passed this point, when my attention was attracted by a pair of fiery orbs that glistened out of some low bushes upon the left bank of the river. I saw that they were the eyes of some animal, but what kind of animal I could not guess. I know they were not the eyes of a deer. Their peculiar scintillation, their lesser size, the wide space between them all convinced me they were not deer’s eyes. Moreover, they moved at times, as if the head of the animal was carried about in irregular circles. This is never the case with the eyes of the deer, which either pass hurriedly from point to point, or remain with a fixed and steadfast gaze.
“I knew, therefore, it was no deer; but no matter what—it was some wild creature, and all such are alike the game of the prairie-hunter.