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.
There was a violent splash in the water, a scramble up the bank, a bound or two toward the woods, a pitiful bleat, and then all was still.
"We've got 'im," said Jim.