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"Now, Neal Farrar, you've got to be as still as the night itself, remember. If you bounce, or turn, or draw a long breath, you won't have a rag of reputation as a deer-hunter to take back to England. Sneeze once, and we're done for. That means more diet of flapjacks and pork, instead of venison steaks. And I guess your city appetite won't rally to pork much longer, even in the wilds."
Neal Farrar sighed as if there was something in that.
"But, you know, it's just when an unlucky fellow would give his life not to sneeze that he's sure to bring out a thumping big one," he said plaintively.
"Well, keep it back like a hero if your head bursts in the attempt," was the reply with a muffled laugh. "When you know that the canoe is gliding along somehow, but you can't hear a sound or feel a motion, and you begin to wonder whether you're in the air or on water, flying or floating, imagine that you're the ghost of some old Indian hunter who used to jack for deer on Squaw Pond, and be stonily silent."
"Oh! I say, stop chaffing," whispered Neal impetuously. "You're enough to make a fellow feel creepy before ever he starts. I could bear the worst racket on earth better than a dead quiet."
This dialogue was exchanged in low but excited voices between a young man of about one and twenty, and a lad who was apparently five years his junior, while they waded knee-deep in water among the long, rank grasses and circular pads of water-lilies which border the banks of Squaw Pond, a small lake in the forest region of northern Maine.
The hour was somewhere about eleven o'clock. The night was intensely still, without a zephyr stirring among the trees, and of that wavering darkness caused by a half-clouded moon. On the black and green water close to the bank rocked a light birch-bark canoe, a ticklish craft, which a puff might overturn. The young man who had urged the necessity for silence was groping round it, fumbling with the sharp bow, in which he fixed a short pole or "jack-staff," with some object—at present no one could discern what—on top.
"There, I've got the jack rigged up!" he whispered presently. "Step in now, Neal, and I'll open it. Have you got your rifle at half-cock? That's right. Be careful. A fellow would need to have his hair parted in the middle in a birch box like this. Remember, mum's the word!"
The lad obeyed, seating himself as noiselessly as he could in the bow of the canoe, and threw his rifle on his shoulder in a convenient position for shooting, with a freedom which showed he was accustomed to firearms.
At the same time his companion stepped into the canoe, having first touched the dark object on the pole just over Neal's head. Instantly it changed into a brilliant, scintillating, silvery eye, which flashed forward a stream of white light on a line with the pointed gun, cutting the black face of the pond in twain as with a silver blade, and making the leaves on shore glisten like oxidized coins.
The effect of this sudden illumination was so sudden and beautiful that the boy for a minute or two held his rifle in unsteady hands while the canoe glided out from the bank. An exclamation began in his throat which ended in an indistinct gurgle. Remembering that he was pledged to silence, he settled himself to be as wordless and motionless as if his living body had become a statue.
From his position no revealing radiance fell on him. He sat in shadow beside that glinting eye, which was really a good-sized lantern, fitted at the back with a powerful silvered reflector, and in front with a glass lens, the light being thrown directly ahead. It was provided also with a sliding door that could be noiselessly slipped over the glass with a touch, causing the blackness of a total eclipse.
This was the deer-hunters' "jack-lamp," familiarly called by Neal's companion the "jack."
And now it may be readily guessed in what thrilling night-work these canoe-men are engaged as they skim over Squaw Pond, with no swish of paddle, nor jar of motion, nor even a noisy breath, disturbing the brooding silence through which they glide. They are "jacking" or "floating" for deer, showing the radiant eye of their silvery jack to attract any antlered buck or graceful doe which may come forth from the screen of the forest to drink at this quiet hour amid the tangled grasses and lily-pads at the pond's brink.
Now, a deer, be it buck, doe, or fawn in the spotted coat, will stand as if moonstruck, if it hears no sound; to gaze at the lantern, studying the meteor which has crossed its world as an astronomer might investigate a rare, radiant comet. So it offers a steady mark for the sportsman's bullet, if he can glide near enough to discern its outline and take aim. There is one exception to this rule. If the wary animal has ever been startled by a shot fired from under the jack, trust him never to watch a light again, though it shine like the Kohinoor.
As for Neal Farrar, this was his first attempt at playing the part of midnight hunter; and I am bound to say that—being English born and city bred—he found the situation much too mystifying for his peace of mind.
He knew that the canoe was moving, moving rapidly; for giant pines along the shore, looking solid and black as mourning pillars, shot by him as if theirs were the motion, with an effect indescribably weird. Now and again a gray pine stump, appearing, if the light struck it, twice its real size, passed like a shimmering ghost. But he felt not the slightest tremor of advance, heard no swish or ripple of paddle.
A moisture oozed from his skin, and gathered in heavy drips under the brim of his hat, as he began to wonder whether the light bark skiff was working through the water at all, or skimming in some unnatural way above it. For the life of him he could not settle this doubt. And, fearful of balking the expedition by a stir, he dared not turn his head to investigate the doings of his comrade, Cyrus Garst.
Cyrus, though also city bred, was an American, and evidently an old hand at the present business. The Maine wilds had long been his playground. He had studied the knack of noiseless paddling under the teaching of a skilled forest guide until he fairly brought it to perfection. And, in perfection, it is about the most wizard-like art practised in the nineteenth century.
The silent propulsion was managed thus: the grand master of the paddle gripped its cross handle in both hands, working it so that its broad blade cut the water first backward then forward so dexterously that not even his own practised hearing could detect a sound; nor could he any more than Neal feel a sensation of motion.
The birch-bark skiff skimmed onward as if borne on unseen pinions.
To Neal Farrar, who had been brought up amid the tumult of rival noises and the practical surroundings of Manchester, England, who was a stranger to the solitudes of primitive forests, and almost a stranger to weird experiences, the silent advance was a mystery. And it began to be a hateful one; for he had not even the poor explanation of it which has been given in this record.
It was only his third night in Maine wilds; and I fear that his friend Cyrus, when inviting him to join in the jacking excursion, had refrained from explaining the canoe mystery, mischievously promising himself considerable fun from the English lad's bewilderment.
Neal's hearing was strained to catch any sound of big game beating about amid the bushes on shore or splashing in the water, but none reached him. The night seemed to grow stiller, stiller, ever stiller, as they glided towards the head of the pond, until the dead quiet started strange, imaginary noises.
There was a pounding as of dull hammers in his ears, a belling in his head, and a drumming at his heart.
He was tortured by a wild desire to yell his loudest, and defy the brooding silence.
Another—a midnight watchman—broke it instead.
"Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!"
It was the thrilling scream of a big-eyed owl as he chased a squirrel to its death, and proceeded to banquet in unwinking solemnity.
"Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!"
Neal started,—who wouldn't?—and joggled the canoe, thereby nearly ending the night hunt at once by the untimely discharge of his rifle.
He had barely regained some measure of steadiness, though he felt as if needles were sticking into him all over, when at last there was a crashing amid the bushes on the right bank, not a hundred yards distant.
Noiselessly as ever the canoe shot around, turning the jack's eye in that direction. A minute later a magnificent buck, swinging his antlers proudly, dashed into the pond, and stooped his small red tongue to drink, licking in the water greedily with a soft, lapping sound.
Neal silently cocked his rifle, almost choking with excitement; then paused for a few seconds to brace up and control the nervous terrors which had possessed him, before his eye singled out the spot in the deer's neck which his bullet must pierce. But he found his operations further delayed; for the animal suddenly lifted its head, scattered feathery spray from its horns and hoofs, and retired a few steps up the bank.
In its former position every part of its body was visibly outlined under the silver light of the jack. Now a successful shot would be difficult, though it might be managed. The boy leaned slightly forward, trying to hold his gun dead straight and take cool aim, when the most curious of all the curious sensations he had felt this night ran through him, seeming to scorch like electricity from his scalp to his feet.
From the stand which the deer had taken, its body was in shadow. All that the sportsman could discern were two living, glowing eyes, staring—so it appeared to him—straight into his, like starry search-lights, as if they read the death-purpose in the boy's heart, and begged him to desist.
It was all over with Neal Farrar's shot. He lowered his rifle, while the speech, which could no longer be repressed, rattled in his throat before it broke forth.
"I'll go crazy if I don't speak!" he cried.
At the first word the buck went scudding like the wind through the forest, doubtless vowing by the shades of his ancestors that he never would stand to gaze at a light again.
"And—and—I can't shoot the thing while it's looking at me like that!" the boy blurted out.
"You dunderhead! What do you mean?" gasped Cyrus, breaking silence in a gusty whisper of mingled anger and amusement. "You won't get a chance to shoot it or anything else now. You've lost us our meat for to-night."
"Well, I couldn't help it," Neal whispered back. "For pity's sake, what has been moving this canoe? The quiet was enough to set a fellow mad! And then that buck stared straight at me like a human thing. I could see nothing but two burning eyes with white rings round them."
"Stuff!" was the American's answer. "He was gazing at the jack, not at you. He couldn't see an inch of you with that light just over your head. But it would have been a hard shot anyhow, for his nose was towards you, and ten to one you'd have made a clean miss."
"Well," he added, after five minutes of acute listening, "I guess we may give over jacking for to-night. That first cry of yours was enough to set a regiment of deer scampering. I'm only half mad after all at your losing a chance at such a splendid buck. It was something to see him as he stooped to drink in the glare of the jack, a midnight forest picture such as one wants to remember. Long may he flourish! We wouldn't have started out to rid him of his glorious life if we weren't half-starved on flapjacks and ends of pork. Let's get back to camp! I guess you felt a few new sensations to-night, eh, Neal Farrar?"