Cutting off the top was a simple proposition but the “handling” was more complicated. For a moment it looked as though there were at least twenty deer. The air seemed to be full of them and it was not safe to go near. Greenleaf could not even get down out of the tree. But such violent antics could not last long in the dense brush. In a very few minutes the deer was completely tangled up in the wire and lay panting in a clump of alders unable to get up. Cautiously Sturgis sneaked up from behind and unfastened the wire loop. Scott, venturing a little too close had his trousers slit from the knee to the ankle with one vicious blow of that delicate front foot.
For an instant—and only an instant—the deer did not realize that it was free. Then with one bound it landed squarely on all four feet, cleared the clump of alders as lightly as a puff of smoke, and bounced away up the ridge the white tail waving defiance.
The progress home was slow—for Sturgis’ leg was rather badly wrenched—but they managed to get there just as the boys were coming down from breakfast and their advent into camp was, if possible, more triumphant than when they had captured the bear.
The days in camp had come to an end, come insensibly to an end, for time had glided so swiftly from one event to another that it was almost impossible to believe that those four months, which had seemed so long in the spring, had actually gone.
It was about seven o’clock in the morning when the canoes put out slowly from the boathouse, one by one, and assembled in a little compact fleet just outside the swimming raft ready for the seven-hundred-mile trip down the river. When the last had joined the fleet there was a mighty wholehearted yell for the old camp, before they all shot away together toward the river. The yell was answered by the one lonely scream of a loon.
There was many a lingering backward look as long as the camp was in sight, but once in the shallow river they were soon too busy to think of it. The river was low, and the mighty Father of Waters was in many places unable to float the little fleet. They frequently had to resort to towlines and it was noon before they passed the mouth of Sucker Brook and La Salle, where they had comparatively deep water. Even then progress was slow, for the lumbermen had blocked the river in many places with splash dams to enable them to drive their logs. Night caught them less than half way to Bemidji.