. The deer had not
stopped to stare at the light for an instant. A jack light ought to
have a reflector, but the boys had no means of contriving one.

Unspeakably disappointed, they moved slowly on again. They started no
more game, and at last reached the lower end of the lake. Here Mac
stopped to renew the torch, which had almost burned out.

Then they turned up the other side of the lake, on the home stretch.
No living thing except themselves seemed to be on the water that night.
The shore shoaled far out. Once the keel scraped over a bottom of soft
mud. Lilies grew along the shore, and sometimes extended out so far
that the canoe brushed the half-grown pads.

Suddenly Fred felt the canoe swerve slightly, and head toward the land.
Horace raised the rifle. Fred had seen nothing, but after straining
his eyes ahead, he made out two faint spots of light in the darkness,
at about the height of a man's head. Could it be a deer? The balls of
light remained perfectly motionless.

Without a splash the canoe glided closer. Fred thought that he could
make out the outline of the animal's head, and clenched his hands in
anxiety. Why did not Horace shoot?

Suddenly a blinding flash blazed out from the rifle, and the report
crashed across the water. There was a splash, followed immediately by
a noise of violent thrashing in the water near the land.

Fred and Mac shouted together. With great paddle strokes, Mac drove
the canoe forward, and at last Horace leaped out. The others followed
him. The deer was down, struggling in the water. It was dead before
they reached it. Horace's bullet had broken its neck.

"Hurrah!" Fred cried. "This makes us safe. This'll last us all the
way home."

It was a fine young buck--so heavy that they had hard work to lift it
into the canoe. Far up the lake they could see their camp-fire, and
they paddled toward it with the haste of half-starved men.

Without stopping to cut up the animal, they skinned one haunch and cut
off slices, which they set to broil over the coals. A delicious odor
rose; the boys did not even wait until the meat had cooked thoroughly.
They had no salt, but the venison, unseasoned as it was, seemed
delicious.

The food gave them all more cheerfulness and energy. The prospect of a
hard ten days' journey did not look so bad now. At any rate, they
would not starve.

"I wonder if the foxes would eat it. They ought to have something,"
said Fred, and he