Whether the heavy
bullet intended for deer laid him open--which is improbable--or whether
it didn't, nobody had a chance to discover. Being unused to birch-bark
canoes, the sportsman gave a slight lurch aside after he had discharged
his leaden messenger of death, startled doubtless by the loud,
unexpected echoes which reverberated through the forest after his shot.
"Hold on!" cried Cyrus, trying to avert a ducking by a counter-motion.
"You'll tip us over!"
Too late! The birch skiff spun round, rocked crazily for a second or
two, and keeled over, spilling both its occupants into the black and
silver water of the pond.
Of course they ducked under, and of course they rose, gurgling and
spluttering.
"You didn't lose the rifle, Neal, did you?" gasped the American directly
he could speak.
"Not I! I held on to it like grim death."
"Good for you! To lose a hundred-and-fifty-dollar gun when we're
starting into the wilds would be maddening."
Then, just because they were extremely healthy, happy, vigorous fellows,
whose lungs had been drinking in pure, exhilarating ozone and fragrant
odors of pine-balsam and were thereby expanded, they took a cheerful
view of this duck under, and made the midnight forest echo, echo, and
re-echo, with peals and gusts and shouts of laughter, while they
struggled to right their canoe.
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