At length they reached the middle of the lake, and Frank, to his delight, discovered that they were gaining rapidly.  Archie redoubled his efforts, and a few more strokes brought them close alongside of the buck, which snorted aloud in his terror, and leaped half-way out of the water, then settled down nobly to his work.

Had Frank been an experienced deer-hunter, he would have been very careful not to approach the game in that manner; for a deer, when he finds himself unable to escape, will fight most desperately, and his sharp antlers and hoofs, which will cut like a knife, are weapons not to be despised.  But Frank, in his excitement, did not step to think of this, and, letting go the tiller, he seized his gun, and fired both barrels in quick succession.  But the shot was not fatal; and the buck, maddened with pain, leaped almost entirely out of the water.

Frank now saw their danger, and, seizing the oars, attempted to turn the boat out of the reach of the wounded animal; but it was too late, for the buck, in his struggles, placed his fore-feet in the bow of the skiff, and overturned it in an instant, and boys, dogs, ducks, and all, were emptied into the cold waters of the lake.  When they rose to the surface, they found the skiff right side up, and dancing over the waves they had made, and the ducks and oars were floating in the water around them.

Their first thought was to discover what had become of the buck; he and Brave were engaged in a most desperate fight, in which the dog was evidently getting the better of it.  The hounds, probably not relishing their ducking, were making for the nearest shore, as if their lives depended upon the issue.

Frank swam up to the skiff, and took hold of it, to keep himself afloat; but Archie picked up an oar, and struck out toward the buck, exclaiming,

“I guess I’d better take a hand in this fight.”

“No, no,” said Frank, quickly, “you had better keep away from him; he has too much strength left.  He would beat you down under the water in less than a minute.  Brave can manage him alone.”

The next moment Frank happened to think of his gun.  Where was it?  He drew himself up and looked into the canoe.  It was not there; it was at the bottom of the lake.

“Archie,” he exclaimed, “we’ve lost our guns.”

“Just my luck,” answered his cousin, bitterly.  “Now, I’ll have revenge for that.”

And, swimming around behind the buck, out of reach of his dangerous hoofs, he raised himself in the water, and struck him a powerful blow, that shivered the blade of the oar into fragments.  It was a fatal blow; and the buck ceased his struggles, and lay motionless on the water.  It was a lucky circumstance for Brave that Archie had taken part in the fight, for the poor dog had experienced some pretty rough handling.  He had received several wounds from the sharp hoofs of the buck, and there was a severe cut in his neck, from which the blood was flowing profusely; but the way he continued to shake the buck after Archie had dealt the fatal blow showed that there was plenty of fight left in him.  Frank carefully lifted him into the boat, and, by their united efforts, after a good deal of hard work, the buck was thrown in after him.  The boys then climbed in themselves, and Frank said,