Really it must have been a very hungry deer. As a rule such an animal, when feeding, is so nervous and suspicious that every minute or so its tail will whisk, and the hunters know from this that the deer will immediately raise its head to take a look around. But although the boys as they advanced kept their eyes fastened closely on their intended quarry, they could not see even the slightest movement. Roger had begged the privilege of having first shot, and, when they had crept as close as seemed wise, his gun-stock came up against his cheek, his eye ran along the sights, and then his finger pressed the hair trigger of the long-barreled rifle. Strange to say, the deer never moved even then. Roger was more than amazed. "Give him a shot, Dick!" he cried, "or he may get away from us yet, thanks to my poor aim!" Dick was about to comply, when suddenly the deer toppled over. There was something decidedly suspicious in the way the animal collapsed, and Dick had a flash of intelligence sweep over him. He believed the deer was being used for a stalking animal, and had been dead all the while, its body propped up to deceive them. And even as this dreadful truth struck him, he heard loud Indian whoops ring out. CHAPTER XXX A MOMENT OF PERIL "WE are done for!" cried Roger, as vociferous yells from various quarters told of the sudden peril that had burst upon them. The pioneer boys had often, when sitting at the knees of their fathers, heard how the crafty Indians along the Ohio River, wishing to coax the settlers ashore when they drifted down the stream in their shanty boats, would resort to a ruse. There were white renegades among the natives, men like Simon Girty, who had been chased out of the settlements for wrong-doing, and who, hating their kind, had joined fortunes with the red tribes. One of these turncoats would disguise himself, and set up a plaintive appeal for help, claiming to be an honest man, who had just escaped from the torture post of the Indians, and begging the newcomers not to forsake him. In a few instances his appeals would touch the hearts of the whites, so that, even against their good judgment, they were known to work the flatboat near the bank. Of course an attack always followed, the Indians springing up from their places of concealment. Dick remembered those thrilling stories now, when he and Roger were victims of a ruse along similar lines. That dummy deer had been placed so it could be seen by those in the canoes. The master mind capable of conceiving this trick knew well that the two lads were born hunters, and, in the need of fresh meat for the camp, could hardly resist the temptation. The game had worked only too well. So cleverly had the dead deer been arranged that even their sharp eyes had failed to detect anything wrong, except that the animal seemed to remain persistently in one spot, and never raised his head.