Once back in the good green woods, both Fleet Foot and the fawns capered
joyously.
It was good just to be alive.
Up and down through the forest trails they galloped,--down to Lone Lake,
then back to Pollywog Pond and along the familiar trails on the slopes
of Mt. Olaf. Summer was even riper and lovelier than when they had been
taken to the Valley Farm,--and to the fawns, remember, it was their
first taste of mid-summer in the Maine woods.
These tiny fellows leaped and gamboled hide-and-seek, till you would
have thought they would have broken their fragile legs among the
boulders and fallen tree-trunks. But their mother knew her training had
been thorough, and they would know just how to leap and land with
safety.
"Hello, there!--Chick-a-dee-dee, Chick-a-dee-dee," a little gray bird in
a black cap kept calling, as he followed from tree to tree.
When at last they had had their dinner of warm milk, and Fleet Foot had
cropped her fill of the tender green things that lay like a banquet
table everywhere about them, she led them to a little rocky ledge that
over-looked Lone Lake, where they could lie under the partial shade of a
clump of yellow birch trees and rest, while she chewed her cud. The
black fly season was well past, and there was nothing to disturb them
save a passing swarm of midges that couldn't begin to bite through their
thick fur.
(They little dreamed that Frisky, the Red Fox Pup, was peering down on
them from a higher crag, where he, too, crouched on the red-brown soil
that proved such a perfect cam-ou-flage.)
No one save a fox could have seen the fawns, so long as they lay still,
their tawny orange-brown coats blended so perfectly with the ground. And
if anyone had noticed the white spots on their sides, he would have
taken them for a glint of the creamy birch-bark.
At first the 'two youngsters watched a yellow-jacketed bumble-bee, who
bumbled and tumbled among the perfumed spikes of the Solomon's seals.
Then their ears pricked to a new voice.
"Greetings, my friends!" called a cheery red-brown coated bird who had
been rustling about among the dead leaves just behind them.
He was as large as a robin, with even longer beak and tail, and his
creamy breast was streaked with darker brown.
"Hello, Thrush," bleated the fawns in shy friendliness.
"You mustn't look for any nest in the bushes around here, because you
won't find it," twittered Thrush, in a tone Old Man Red Fox would have
been suspicious of. "Listen! I am going to give you a concert!" And he
flew to the birch tree over their heads.
There followed a program of the most varied trills and whistles the
fawns had ever heard; and though his voice was not so sweet toned as
some of the tinier birds', his throaty trills and liquid, low-pitched
chirps and whistles were just as delightful as they could be.
There were bird calls all around them, "Pee-wees" and "Chip-chip-chips"
and "Wee-wee-wee-wees" and all sorts of soft little calls and answers.
They none of them minded the fawns in the least, except those who had
nests on the ground. They always watched nervously when the frisky
fellows capered too near, with their sharp little hoofs, though they
knew the fawns wouldn't hurt an ant if they knew it.
Every now and again the singers would cease, when one of the soft
patches of white cloud got in front of the sun; for instantly the air
grew chilly, and a breeze started all the tree-tops to waving till the
birds had to hang on hard.
Then the Lake would ruffle into tiny wave-lets and grow dark green like
the woods along the shore-line. For before, the water had lain as still
as a silver mirror, reflecting the pale blue of the warm sky.
In weather like this, it was good just to lie still and watch and
listen, or drowse off with the sun warm on one's fur and the spicy earth
smells in one's nostrils. The green world was so interesting.
When a passing cloud of a darker gray brought the big drops pattering
about them for a few minutes, they merely scampered under an
over-hanging boulder, where they huddled together on a drift of leaves,
and watched it all.
Later, when the bull-frogs began their "Ke-dunk, ke-dunk," down under
the banks of Lone Lake, where the ducks were feeding their nestlings,
and the sun began to send long red beams slanting through the
tree-trunks, Fleet Foot led them down to a shallow cove for a taste of
lily pads, and they waded in and tried a nibble of everything she
tasted.
After that came a night under a drooping pine tree, whose lowest branch
roofed over a boulder in the most inviting way, and the wind droned
through the branches and blew the mosquitoes all away, and they lay
snuggled warmly together on the fragrant needles, and watched the stars
come out.
In the morning they were just starting out on an exploring tour when
they were alarmed by the baying of a hound.
Now Lop Ear had always had an important duty at the Valley Farm. It had
been his part to round up the cows when night came, or when any of them
went astray in the woods. And all day yesterday he had missed Fleet Foot
from her stall in the hay-barn.
True, she had always seemed different from the regular cows. Until she
came there with her broken leg, he had always supposed she belonged in
the woods. But surely, surely the Farmer would not have kept her there
unless she belonged there, reasoned the, faithful dog. And now she was
gone!
There was but one thing to do: he must go in search of her and bring her
home.
All that day he tried in vain to find her trail. The next morning he was
up with the sun. This time he would search farther afield. "Wow!
Bow-wow! Wow-wow-wow!" Here was a footprint, unless his nose deceived
him! What's more, they had passed that way not ten minutes since! It was
but a matter of following the trail, and he would be nipping at their
heels and driving them back to the Farm.
"Wow-wow-wow!" he bayed; and Frisky, the Red Fox Pup, heard and came
trotting to peek at him and see what it was all about.
The sound filled the fawns with uneasiness. They had always been afraid
of Lop Ear, with his nipping and yapping around the cattle.
"Children," bade Fleet Foot sternly, "hurry to that clump of bracken and
lie down. Stretch your heads and fore legs out straight in front of you
and lie there as flat as you can make yourselves,--while I lead this
hound off somewhere where he'll lose your scent."
The fawns obeyed instantly.
Fleet Foot then doubled back on her trail, and with a stamp and a snort
to call the hound's attention, she soon had him following her great
bounds in quite the opposite direction. She kept just far enough ahead
of him to make sure he wouldn't give up the chase--though she could
easily have out-distanced him.
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