Camp Mates in Michigan; or, with Pack and Paddle in the Pine Woods

by St. George Rathborne

  CHAPTER X

  THE FIGHTING BUCK

  After watching the progress of the swimming deer for a few minutes, asudden idea flashed into the mind of Teddy.

  “Wonder if I could work that camera of Dolph’s now?” he exclaimed.“It’d be a bully good picture to get that buck swimming.”

  He hurried to the tent, and snatched up the little kodak.

  Another minute and he had launched the second canoe, and was wieldingthe paddle for all he was worth. Teddy headed in such fashion as tointercept the swimming animal, and keep him from reaching land. It wasnot his purpose to attempt to do the buck any injury, simply to havesome fun; though, of course, the animal had no means of understandingthat.

  Before Teddy had gone a hundred yards he discovered his chum in one ofthe small bays, still trailing his cast of flies over the water.

  “Hi! Dolph! deer swimming! Come out, and help have some fun with him,”was what Teddy shouted.

  And Dolph, apparently nothing loth, started to paddle vigorously,meaning to join the other as he came along.

  The deer had taken the alarm, and changed his course. He was now headedso as to reach a tongue of land that jutted out into the lake.

  But the canoes could move four feet to his one. Rapidly they overhauledhim. Still, there was nothing for the buck to do but keep doggedly on.Plainly though, he was alarmed and “putting in his best licks” as Teddysaid.

  “I’ve got your kodak along,” cried Teddy, as the two canoes drew closetogether.

  “Good for you,” Dolph replied.

  “Thought we’d like to get a picture of the deer swimming the lake.”

  “Crack him off now, then, Teddy.”

  “I’d rather you’d manage it,” said the other. “I might make a bad jobof it, and never hear the end of the joke. Pull in a little closer, andI’ll throw it over. Be sure and catch it now.”

  The change was successfully completed. And although neither of theboys dreamed of such a thing just then, it was fated to prove a veryfortunate idea on the part of Teddy. At least, it saved the kodak fromending its usefulness at the bottom of the lake.

  “Let’s surround him,” suggested Dolph, after he had managed to snap offone view. “I’d like to get a closer shot at him.”

  “All right,” agreed Teddy, ready for anything, “you go that way, andI’ll head him off. How’d it do to catch hold of his short tail, andmake him tow the canoe?”

  “Great stunt for a picture!” declared Dolph excitedly.

  What the buck thought about it, no one seemed to care. Teddy put ona little extra spurt of speed, and circled around the deer. Then heheaded directly at the swimmer. The buck swerved a little, and Teddy,now crouched in the bow of his canoe, leaned forward.

  “All ready for a shot, Dolph?” he shouted. The buck was swimminggallantly, and desperately, too.

  “Now, snap away!” whooped Teddy, reaching down, and clutching the shorttail of the deer.

  What happened just then was never very clear to Teddy. The buck musthave turned upon him, when insult was added to injury. He heardthe “click” of the kodak; then something rammed the frail canoe sofuriously that Teddy went headlong into the lake.

  Being a good swimmer, the boy instantly struck out. It happenedfortunately that at the time he was only wearing a sleeveless tunic,also a pair of trousers and tennis shoes, for the day had turned outquite warm.

  When Teddy arose to the surface, after his hasty dive, he shook hishead in his accustomed way, to get the wet hair away from his eyes.

  The first thing he heard was Dolph roaring:

  “Look out! He’s coming after you! He’s a fighter, all right! Dive,Teddy, dive!”

  And then, sure enough, Teddy saw the buck. For the time being theanimal seemed to have forgotten how anxious he had been to reach theshore. Revenge was what he appeared to be after now. Teddy had placedan indignity upon him when pulling his tail, that no self-respectingbuck could stand.

  Teddy saw it was useless attempting to get into the canoe again, withthat angry beast in full chase. The tables had turned, and it was nowTeddy who was being pursued.

  He was a good swimmer, but perhaps the deer was even better. So itseemed as if Dolph’s suggestion might be the best after all. By divingunder 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, butwent down like a shot, meaning to swim under water for the floatingcanoe.

  He must have made a pretty accurate, if hasty, calculation, for whenhe arose to the surface again, he was just behind his canoe, which hadrighted after tossing its occupant out.

  “What’s he doing now, Dolph?” called Teddy, when he could get rid ofsome 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 Iwant today,” declared the boy in the water.

  “All right, now; he’s turned to the shore. I guess he thinks you’vedrowned,” 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 inover the stern, by straddling the same, the only way a canoe can beentered from the water.

  “Pick up both paddles, will you, Dolph? Well, can you beat that? I’vehad some queer things happen to me, but that’s the first time I everhad a deer give me a ducking. Good joke on me, Dolph.”

  “You’ll say so when you see the picture,” chuckled the other.

  “What! did you strike me off?” gasped Teddy.

  “Just when you were going over,” laughed Dolph. “Wouldn’t be surprisedbut what it’ll show what made the canoe turn partly over, because I sawthe deer do it. There’s the marks of his horns right now, where theyscratched the green paint.”

  “Well, don’t that beat all? I’m glad we met up with that old buck. Say,he’s some scrapper, let me tell you. Look at him climbing out on thebank, Dolph! Aint he feeling proud, though? See him shake his antlers,and strike his hoof on the ground. You put it all over your UncleTeddy, that time, old chap. I’ll be mighty careful after this, how Itry and make a swimming deer tow me, while I’m squatting in the bow ofa cranky canoe. There he goes. Good-bye, and good luck to you.”

  There was not a bit of resentment in Teddy’s voice, as he waved a handafter the disappearing deer. He could give and take, and in his mindthe buck had come out of the little affair with high honors.

  “Guess I’ll go in with you,” remarked Dolph, after he had easilyrecovered the floating paddles, and handed them to his chum.

  “Mebbe you think it ain’t safe to trust me alone on a big lake likethis, and in a boat that can act like a bucking broncho!” chuckledTeddy.

  “Oh! I’m done fishing. Got all we can use, and they’ve about stoppedrising to the fly too. Gamey fellows, I tell you, Teddy, all right.”

  “I watched you pull in a few, and saw that they were full of fight, allright. But that’s always the way with Michigan bass. They never giveup till they’re all played out. I’ve had one on that jumped out of thewater sixteen times, and only a two pound fish at that. Yes, that _is_a beauty, sure enough.” as Dolph held up a splendid fish, “and I seethat you believe in knocking ’em on the head when you boat them, to endtheir suffering.”

  “The only way anyone should do,” declared Dolph, earnestly. “I hate tosee fish gasping their lives away in the sun. Besides, they’d flop allover and keep up the worst racket you ever heard. When you’re fishing,you had ought never to knock the boat more than you can help. Soundtravels through the water like everything.”

  “You never said a truer thing, Dolph, and I know it,” declared Teddy,as they paddled for the camp landing place.

  “Going to change your clothes?” asked the other, laughing again.

  “Oh! I guess not, they can dry on me,
all right. Laugh all you want to,Dolph. It’s a good joke, that’s certain. And I reckon Amos—listen,I wonder if that was him firing, and what he found to shoot at. Amoswouldn’t dream of killing a deer in the close season.”

  “Not unless he was nearly starving, and needed food. But Teddy, somehowor other I don’t believe that was Amos shooting.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked the other.

  “Because I’m sure I heard _two_ reports, one right after the other,”Dolph went on.

  “You mean that Amos only carries a single shot gun; but that’s whereyou’re mistaken, my boy. He took my Marlin repeater along. I told himto carry it the next time he went off.”

  “Still, the shots were so close together, one gun couldn’t have madethem, unless it was a double-barreled scatter gun. Perhaps we’re notthe only ones around here. We happen to know about Gabe Hackett, and hesaid he was on the way to visit a friend’s cabin, a man named Crawley.”

  “Yes,” said Teddy, “I know the man, too, and he’s about as hard a case,when drinking, as Big Gabe ever could be, from what Amos tells us.Those two men are game poachers; that is, they shoot game regardless ofthe close season. Perhaps they’ve knocked over the buck that upset me?That could hardly be, either, for the shots sounded too far away.”

  “Anyhow, I hope our chum Amos doesn’t fall in with them,” remarked theother, as they jumped ashore, and drew the canoes up on the shelvingbeach.

  And Teddy voiced the same wish, though not dreaming that there was anydanger of such a thing happening to Amos.