Now, when it was almost too late, he found that he could use it without danger to himself. By bending his body forward, the deer protected him and he could labor with impunity.
"Tim O'Rooney, I fears yez are lacking in the iliments which go to make up a mon of sense. Why didn't yez think of this when it would have done yez more good?"
When he was yet within a few yards of shore, he looked back and was not a little frightened to see that the savages had launched a canoe and were coming across the river with the speed of the swallow.
"Whisht now! but that is onexpected," said he, as he redoubled his own exertions. Observing that his pursuers were rapidly gaining, he suddenly recalled an artifice that he had seen practiced during his experience in the mines years before. Catching up his rifle, he aimed it at the advancing Indians.
Quick as a flash they ducked their heads and held up the two paddles they were using as a protection against the expected bullet. But it was not Tim's purpose to fire. He knew better than to do that, for ere he could have reloaded they would have been upon him.
The minute they stooped he lowered his gun and caught up his paddle and used it furiously. In this he was imitated by the Indians, whose superior skill sent their frail vessel forward with such velocity that it looked as if they would reach the shore but a short distance behind him.
Again he raised his gun, and as before they attempted to screen themselves from danger, while the next impulse of his paddle sent his canoe high up the bank, and he sprung out and plunged into the woods.
Tim O'Rooney had no thought of the particular manner in which he was to effect his escape. His one desire was to get away from them. The probabilities are that, beyond all doubt, he would have been speedily overtaken and slain but for one of those singular occurrences which do not happen to a man more than once in a life-time, and which seem to show unmistakably that Providence often interferes directly in favor of the innocent and distressed.
He had run perhaps a couple of hundred yards, or thereabouts, when a peculiar whoop from his pursuers announced that they had landed and were now coming speedily behind him. He knew that he had no chance in running, and was looking about him for some place in which to take shelter, when a furious growl startled him and he found himself within a dozen feet from enormous grizzly bear. This quadruped seemed anxious for a fight, for he came straight at the fugitive, who might certainly be excused for being dazed at the combination of dangers by which he was surrounded.