thrilling tone.

He instantly snatched up the repeating gun as soon as his chum's
fingers had closed upon the steering wheel. Larry turned his eyes to
look ahead, for he realized that his companion must have seen something.

A crashing sound was heard. Then he had a glimpse of a dun colored
object flitting through the scrub palmettoes under the pines.

"Oh! that was a deer, wasn't it?" Larry exclaimed.

Phil had lowered his gun, with an expression akin to disappointment on
his face.

"Just what it was," he said; "and he got away scot free, all right,
thanks to that scrub interfering with my aim. Well, better luck next
time, Larry. I think I'm safe in saying you will have venison before
long."

"But," interrupted the other, as he worked valiantly at the wheel, for
they had come to an abrupt turn of the river, "I saw him skip past.
Why didn't you shoot anyhow and take chances?"

"I might if I'd had a rifle," answered Phil; "but the distance was so
far that I knew there was a mighty poor show of my bringing him down
with scattering buckshot. I'd hate to just wound the poor beast, and
have him suffer. If we could have come closer before he scampered off,
it would have been different."

Possibly few boys would have allowed themselves to hesitate under such
conditions; but as Phil said, he had been taught what he knew of
woodcraft by a father who was very careful about taking the life he
could never give back again.

After that Larry kept constantly on the alert watching ahead, in the
hope of discovering another deer, which might be brought down by his
quick acting chum.

"Of course we won't try to run along after night sets in," remarked
Larry, as he noted how low in the west the glowing sun had fallen.

"Well, not if we know it," laughed Phil. "It's all a fellow can do
now, with the broad daylight to help him guide this boat around the
corners, and avoiding snags. Look at that half submerged log ahead
there, will you? Suppose we ran full tilt on that now, what a fine
hole there would be punched in the bow of the Aurora, to let the river
in. No, we're going to stop pretty soon."

"That means to tie up for the night, don't it?" queried Larry, always
wanting to know.

"If we can find a tree handy, which will always be the case along the
river, I take it," Phil replied. "We carry an anchor of course; but I
don't expect to use that till we get to the big gulf. Tony, suppose
you keep an eye out for th