It was weird, uncanny, that paddle down the lake, the black water beneath them and a black formless void around and above them. A dozen strokes from shore Walter felt as utterly lost so far as sense of direction was concerned as if blindfolded. But not so Big Jim. He sent the canoe forward as confidently as if in broad daylight. The jack was lighted but not uncovered.
Walter became aware presently that the canoe was moving very much more slowly and he suspected that they were approaching the lower end of the pond. At a whispered word he turned on the jack. The narrow beam of light cutting athwart the darkness made the night seem blacker by contrast. Very, very slowly they were moving, and there was not so much as the sound of a ripple against their light craft.
The boy sat motionless, but listen as he would he could detect no smallest sound to denote the presence of his companion, much less to indicate that he was paddling. But paddling he was, and the canoe steadily crept forward. A mighty chorus of frog voices in many keys evidenced the close proximity of the meadows surrounding the outlet. As the canoe’s course was altered to parallel the shore the boy cautiously turned in his seat so that the rays from the jack were directed shoreward. At that distance, even in the very center of the beam of light, the shore was but a ghostly outline, and Walter wondered how it could be possible that they could see the eyes of a deer.
Once the heavy plunge of a muskrat made him jump inwardly, for his nerves were keyed to a high pitch. He was beginning to feel cramped from so long maintaining one position. One foot and leg had gone to sleep. But he grimly ground his teeth and resolved that, come what might, he would not move.
A slight tremor on the port side of the canoe attracted his attention and he realized that Big Jim was shaking it, the signal agreed upon should the guide see the deer first. Walter forgot his discomfort. Eagerly he stared at the shore. For a few minutes he saw nothing unusual. Suddenly he became conscious of two luminous points—the eyes of a deer gazing in fixed fascinated stare at the light. He could discern no faintest outline of the animal, but the eyes glowed steadily, unwinking.
Inch by inch the canoe drifted in. Suddenly the two glowing points disappeared. Walter’s heart sank. Had the animal taken fright? No, there they were again! The deer had merely lowered its head for a moment. A shake of the canoe warned the boy that there was something more. Turning his own eyes from the two burning there in the blackness he presently became aware of two more, smaller and lower down. A second later he saw a third pair.
What could it mean? Could it be that the deer had enemies stalking it? What if it should be a lynx or even a panther! His excited imagination conjured up a thrilling scene. What if he could photograph it! He longed to ask the guide what it all meant, but that was impossible.
Slowly, slowly they drifted in toward the three pairs of eyes. Walter kept his camera pointed directly at them, the shutter open, not knowing what instant the flash might go off. Still they drifted in, Walter as fascinated by the six glowing points as were the deer by the jack. Inch by inch, inch by inch they drew nearer. Would the flash never go? Walter felt that he must turn and see what Big Jim was doing. Could it be that Jim had disconnected the wires and was unable to fire the flash?
Even as this dread possibility entered his mind the water and shore directly in front of him were lit by a blinding glare. He had an instantaneous impression of a doe and two fawns staring in curious alarm from near the shore of a wild meadow flanked by ghostly tamaracks. Quite automatically he squeezed the bulb that closed the shutter. Then for a few minutes he could see nothing. But he could hear the plunging of the frightened animals as they fled for the shelter of the forest, and his heart leaped at thought of what that negative in his camera must hold.
“Git ’em, pard?” drawled the voice of the guide.