Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1875 — Desperate Fight With a Deer. [ARTICLE]

Desperate Fight With a Deer.

YcstcYday afternoon three young women, residing near the Big Brink Pond, in Sliohola Township, Pa., started tcrgo berrying. They were obliged to, cross the pond to reach the woods. Before entering the boat i hey saw something in the distance swimming in the water. Thinking it was a dog they paid no further attention to it, but started on their way across the pond, which is about two miles wide. After rdwing for several hundred yards the girl who was piloting the boat saw that what they first thought to be a dog swimming in the water was a buck, which was coming directly toward them. Having a clumsy pair of oars it w;is some time before the boat could be turned, and then the deer had reached to within a few yards ot them,. The girls became greatly terrified, for the deer was fast gaining on them, and from the way it snorted and plunged they were satisfied it meant mischief. While the one rowed with all their might the other two paddled, thus somewhat increasing their speed; but the deer was slowly gaining on them, and, knowing they could not reach the shore being overtaken, they ceased rowing to prepare for the inevitable battle. When the aeer, snorting and plunging, had reached to within a few feet of the boat, it stopped for a moment. Then it madeasudden plunge, and as its bead struck the side of the boat the brave girls brought down their raised paddles upon it with such force as to drive it under water. The girls again raised their only weapons, and as the head rose to the surface they again brought their paddles to bear upon it- with the same result. . When the deer again raised from the water it seemed to realize that this was to be’the death-struggle, and its eyes gleamed like balls of fire. It made a'lunge and threw its fore feet over the side of the boat, near the oar-locks. This nearly capsized the clumsy craft and threw Maggie Jordan, the eldest of the three, into the water; but as she fell she caught the edge of the boat, and was hauled in by one of her companions. Then the heroine at the oars, as she felt the animal's breath in her face, raised a paddle and struck for her life, and, as the blow fell across the deer’s head, the blood started from its nostrils and it sank back helpless and seemingly dead, but really only stunned. The girls then started for the shore, leaving the cleer struggling, between life and death, in the water. Reaching the shore, one of the girls ran to a small log cabin, one-eighth of a mile distant, in which lived a family by the name of Berger, and told what "had occurred. Mr. Berger seized his rifle and went tortile pond, where he found the wounded deer yet struggling in the water, a few rods from the shore. "He rowed out to it and, seizing it by the antlers, cut its throat, and then towed its body to the shore. The deer was the largest ever killed in the neighborhood, weighing 227 pounds.— ls. Y. Sun.