In this emergency, Jessie pointed to a stout half-inch
rope that was coiled up in the bottom of the canoe, and I immediately
exchanged places with her, and commenced making a lasso, while she
plied the paddle.
We gained rapidly upon him, and I was preparing to throw the fatal
noose over his horns, when to my astonishment he raised his neck and a
portion of his fore-legs out of the water, as if he was landing. We
were then a considerable distance from the shore, but it appeared, as
I afterwards learned from the doctor, that a long low neck of land
made out there into the lake, that was only submerged in the spring
and autumn, but in summer was covered with wild grass, upon which deer
fed with avidity, as an agreeable change from browsing. The instinct
of the animal induced him to make for this shallow, from which he
could bound away at full speed (trot) into the cover.
All hope of the chase was now over, and I was about abandoning it in
despair, when an arrow whizzed by us, and in an instant he sprang to
his feet, and exposed his huge form to view. He was a remarkable fine
specimen of his kind, for they are the largest as well as the ugliest
of the deer tribe. For an instant he paused, shook himself violently,
and holding down his head, put up his fore-leg to break off that,
which evidently maddened him with pain. He then stood up erect, with
his head high in the air, and laid his horns back on his neck, and,
giving a snort of terror, prepared to save his life by flight.
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