He was a good swimmer, but perhaps the deer was even better. So it seemed as if Dolph’s suggestion might be the best after all. By diving under the water he would leave the vengeful buck in the lurch.
Just how the deer might have attacked him, whether with horns or hoofs, or both together, Teddy did not know. He did not stop to find out, but went down like a shot, meaning to swim under water for the floating canoe.
He must have made a pretty accurate, if hasty, calculation, for when he arose to the surface again, he was just behind his canoe, which had righted after tossing its occupant out.
“What’s he doing now, Dolph?” called Teddy, when he could get rid of some of the water he had half swallowed, and draw in fresh breath.
“Going around in a circle trying to find you,” came the reply.
“Head him off if he looks this way even. I’ve had all the deer hunt I want today,” declared the boy in the water.
“All right, now; he’s turned to the shore. I guess he thinks you’ve drowned,” announced Dolph.
Whereupon Teddy grew bold enough to peep around one end of his canoe, and finding that it was just as Dolph said, he proceeded to climb in over the stern, by straddling the same, the only way a canoe can be entered from the water.