e to those in the boat. We began to be
somewhat anxious as to the result; for although these water hunts are
by no means uncommon occurrences, they are often dangerous and
sometimes fatal to the hunter. The deer had been severely stunned and
hurt, but not killed, by the blow it had received, and it now strove
fiercely against its powerful opponent, throwing him from side to side
by violent tossess of its head. Doughby still held on like grim death,
but his eyes began to roll and stare wildly, his strength was
evidently diminishing, and he had each moment more difficulty in
partially controlling the stag's movements, and preventing the furious
beast from running its antlers into his body. It was in vain that the
four men in the boat endeavoured to render assistance. Man and beast
were rolling and twisting about in the river like two water snakes.
The scene that had at first been interesting had now become painful to
behold.

"Fire, Parker! Fire, Rolby!" shouted several voices from the steamer
to the men in the boat.

"Knock the cussed redskin on the head!" was the unintelligible
rejoinder of one of the latter.

The stag had now got Doughby close to a tree-trunk, against which it
was making violent efforts to crush him. His life was in imminent
peril, and a universal cry of horror and alarm burst from the
spectators. Just then the head of the deer fell on its breast, the
eyes glazing and the legs flinging out convulsively in the agony of
death; at the same time, however, Doughby began to sink, and a bright
streak of blood that rose to the surface of the water, and spread in a
circle round the combatants, gave reason to fear that the mad
Kentuckian had received some deadly hurt. At last the men in the boat
succeeded in getting hold of Doughby and the stag, the former being
seized by the hair of the head, while his hands still clung to the
deer's antlers with the desperate grasp of a drowning man. A shout of
triumph echoed from one end of the steam-boat to the other, and we
all felt a sensation of relief proportionate to the painful state of
suspense in which we had been kept.

Doughby sat for a short space doubled up in the bottom of the boat,
gazing straight before him with a fixed unconscious sort of look. The
grating of the boat against the side of the steamer seemed to rouse
him from his apathy, and he slowly ascended the ladder.

"For heaven's sake, Doughby," cried Richards, as the Kentuckian set
his foot upon