The night was still, and Jim’s powerful paddle urged the little craft up the stream with a push so steady, strong, and noiseless, that its passengers might well have imagined that the unseen river-spirits had it in tow.  The torch cast its long glare into the darkness on either bank, and made shadows so weird and changeful that the boys imagined they saw every form of wild beast and flight of strange bird with which pictures had made them familiar.  Owls hooted in the distance.  A wild-cat screamed like a frightened child.  A partridge, waked from its perch by a flash of the torch, whirred off into the woods.

At length, after paddling up the stream for a mile, they heard the genuine crash of a startled animal.  Jim stopped and listened.  Then came the spiteful stroke of a deer’s forefeet upon the leaves, and a whistle so sharp, strong and vital, that it thrilled every ear that heard it.  It was a question, a protest, a defiance all in one; but not a sign of the animal could be seen.  He was back in the cover, wary and watching, and was not to be tempted nearer by the light.

Jim knew the buck, and knew that any delay on his account would be useless.

“I knowed ’im when I hearn ‘im whistle, an’ he knowed me.  He’s been shot at from this boat more nor twenty times.  ’Not any pine-knots on my plate,’ says he.  ’I seen ’em afore, an’ you can pass.’  I used to git kind o’ mad at ‘im, an’ promise to foller ’im, but he’s so ’cute, I sort o’ like ’im.  He ’muses me.”

While Jim waited and talked in a low tone, the buck was evidently examining the light and the craft, at his leisure and at a distance.  Then he gave another lusty whistle that was half snort, and bounded off into the woods by leaps that struck every foot upon the ground at the same instant, and soon passed beyond hearing.

“Well, the old feller’s gone,” said Jim, “an’ now I know a patch o’ lily-pads up the river where I guess we can find a beast that hasn’t had a public edication.”

The tension upon the nerves of the boys was relieved, and they whispered between themselves about what they had seen, or thought they had seen.

All became still, as Jim turned his boat up the stream again.  After proceeding for ten or fifteen minutes in perfect silence, Jim whispered: 

“Skin yer eyes, now, Mr. Balfour; we’re comin’ to a lick.”

Jim steered his boat around a little bend, and in a moment it was running in shallow water, among grass and rushes.  The bottom of the stream was plainly visible, and Mr. Balfour saw that they had left the river, and were pushing up the debouchure of a sluggish little affluent.  They brushed along among the grass for twenty or thirty rods, when, at the same instant, every eye detected a figure in the distance.  Two blazing, quiet, curious eyes were watching them.  Jim had an instinct which assured him that the deer was fascinated by the light, and so he pushed toward him silently, then stopped, and held his boat perfectly still.  This was the signal for Mr. Balfour, and in an instant the woods were startled by a discharge that deafened the silence.