Part 19 (1/2)

The imperiled lad drew a deep respiration, poised himself on his advanced foot, and, swinging to one side, with a view of avoiding the full force of the charge, he brought down the stock of his gun with the utmost strength he could command.

It descended with great power--so far as a ten-year-old boy is concerned--but it was not sufficient to throw the buck off his base nor to interfere with his plan of procedure.

He struck the lad with tremendous force, sending the gun flying from his grasp and knocking Nick fully a dozen feet. Never in all his life had the boy received such a terrific shock, which drove the breath from his body and sent him spinning, as it seemed, through twenty yards of s.p.a.ce.

Poor Nick believed half his bones were broken and that he was mortally hurt; but the result of the charge was most extraordinary.

As the antlers of the buck struck him he was thrown like a limp dummy toward the fallen tree, and, in reality, his greatest peril was therefrom. Had he been driven with full momentum against the solid trunk, he would have been killed as if smitten by a lightning stroke.

But his feet were entangled in some way and he fell headlong, his forehead within a few inches of the bark, and his head itself was driven under the trunk, which at that point was perhaps a foot above the ground.

Instinctively the nearly senseless lad did the only thing that could save him. He crawled under the trunk, so that it stood like a roof over him.

His head was toward the base, and he pushed along until the lessening s.p.a.ce would not permit him to go further.

Thus he lay parallel with the uprooted tree, his feet at a point where the bark almost touched his heels, the s.p.a.ce growing less and less toward his shoulders, until the back of his head rested against the s.h.a.ggy bark and his nose touched the leaves.

He had scarcely done this when he heard a thud at his elbow: it was made by the knife-like hoofs of the buck, who, rearing on his hind legs, gathered his two front ones close together and brought them down with such force that, had they fallen on the body of the lad, as was intended, they would have cut into him like the edge of a powerfully driven ax.

As it was, the s.h.i.+elding tree trunk prevented it, and, grazing the bark, they were driven into the yielding earth half a foot deep.

The buck immediately reared and repeated the terrible blow several times, missing the body of the lad by what may be called a hair's breadth.

The animal was in a fury, and, believing his foe was at his mercy, he showed him none.

Nick heard the first thump of the sharp hoofs as they cut their way into the earth, and then his head seemed to spin, as though he had been whirled around with inconceivable velocity; innumerable stars danced before his eyes, he felt as if shooting through s.p.a.ce, and then consciousness left him.

The buck could know nothing of this, and, had he known it, his actions would not have been affected. He continued his rearing and plunging until he saw he was inflicting no injury. Then he stopped, backed off several paces, and, lowering his head, tried to dislodge the lad from his place of refuge.

But the breadth of his antlers prevented success, which would have placed Nick just where he could finish him. The oak barred his progress, stopping the head and horns when they were almost against the body.

Then the buck reared and struck again, trying all manner of maneuvers which his instinct suggested, but providentially none of them succeeded.

All this time Nick Ribsam, who had been so badly bruised, was oblivious of the efforts against his life. Had he possessed his faculties, he could not have done anything more for his protection than he did, by lying motionless, extended along and below the trunk of the oak.

But the l.u.s.ty, rugged nature of the lad soon a.s.serted itself, and he began rallying from the shock. A reaction gradually set in, and slowly his senses returned.

It was a considerable time, however, before he realized where he was and what had befallen him. His head was still ringing, as though the clangor of a hundred anvils were sounding in his ears, and, when he drew a deep breath, a pain, as if made by a knife, was in his side.

He listened, but heard nothing of his enemy. Then, with a great labor and more suffering, he pushed himself a few inches backward, so as to give some freedom to his body and to enable him to move his head.

Turning his face, he peered out on his right: the buck was not visible in that direction.

Then he did the same toward the left: his enemy was invisible on that side also.

”He is gone,” said the lad to himself, still afraid to venture from the s.h.i.+elding trunk that had been the means of saving him from the fury of the enraged deer.

Nick believed he was close at hand, waiting for him to make a move that would give another chance to a.s.sault him.