big buck down a runway--all three of them minding their own business and
behaving in a very orderly and peaceable manner--when a shanty-boy
stepped out from behind a big birch just ahead of them, and said, "Aah!"
very derisively and insultingly. The wind was blowing from them to him,
and they hadn't had the least idea that he was there until they were
within three rods of his tree. The buck was so startled that for an
instant he simply stood still and stared, which was exactly what the
shanty-boy had expected him to do. He had stopped so suddenly that his
forefeet were thrust forward into the snow, and he was leaning backward
a trifle. His head was up, his eyes were almost popping out of their
sockets, and there was such a look of astonishment on his face that the
man laughed as he raised his gun and took aim. In a second the deer had
wheeled and was in the air, but a bullet broke his back just as he left
the ground, and he came tumbling down again in a shapeless heap. His
spinal cord was cut, and half his body was dead; but he would not give
up even then, and he half rose on his forefeet and tried to drag himself
away. The shanty-boy stepped to his side with a knife in his hand, the
deer gave one loud bleat of fear and pain, and then it was all over.
But by that time the doe and the Fawn were far down the runway--out of
sight, and out of danger. Next day they passed that way again, and saw a
Canada lynx standing where the buck had fallen, licking his chops as if
he had just finished a good meal. It is hard work carrying a deer
through the woods, and the shanty-boy had lightened his load as much as
possible. Lynxes are not nice. The mother and son pulled their freight
as fast as they could travel.
When the world turned green again they went back to the Glimmerglass,
but they had not been there long before the young Buck had his nose put
out of joint by the arrival of two new babies. Thenceforth his mother
had all she could do to take care of them, without paying any further
attention to him. The days of his fawnhood were over, and it was time
for him to strike out into the world and make his own living.
However, I don't think he was very lonesome. There were plenty of other
deer in the woods, and though he did not associate with any of them as
he had with his mother, yet he may have enjoyed meeting them
occasionally in his travels. And there was ever so much to do and to
think about. Eating took up a good deal of time, for he was very active
and was still growing, and his strong young body was constantly calling
for more food. And it wasn't enough merely to find the food and swallow
it, for no sooner was his stomach full than he had to lie down and chew
the cud for an hour or so. And, of course, the black-flies and
mosquitoes and "no-see-'ems" helped to make things interesting, just as
they had the year before. Strictly speaking, it is impossible to be
lonely in the woods during fly-time. He changed his clothes, too, and
put on a much handsomer dress, though I doubt if he took as much
interest in that operation as most of us would. The change contributed
greatly to his comfort, for his light summer garment was much better
adapted to warm weather than his winter coat, but it did not require any
conscious effort on his part. On hot days he sometimes waded out into
the lake in search of lily-pads, and the touch of the cool water was
very grateful. Occasionally he would take a long swim, and once or twice
he paddled clear across the Glimmerglass, from one shore to the other.
And it was during this summer that he raised his first real antlers.
Those of the previous autumn had been nothing but two little buds of
bone, but these were pointed spikes, several inches in length, standing
straight up from the top of his head without a fork or a branch or a
curve. They did not add very much to his good looks, and, of course,
they dropped off early in the following winter, but they were the
forerunners of the beautiful branching antlers of his later years, and
if he thought about them at all they were probably as welcome as a
boy's first mustache.
Late in the following autumn an event occurred which left its mark on
him for the rest of his life. One night he wandered into a part of the
woods where some lumbermen had been working during the day. On the
ground where they had eaten their lunch he found some baked beans and a
piece of dried apple-pie, and he ate them greedily and was glad that he
had come. But he found something else, too. One of the road-monkeys had
carelessly left his axe in the snow with the edge turned up. The Buck
stepped on it, and it slipped in between the two halves of his cloven
hoof, and cut deep into his foot. The wound healed in the course of
time, but from that night the toes--they were those of his left hind
foot--were spread far apart, instead of lying close together as they
should have done. Sticks and roots sometimes caught between them in a
way that was very annoying, and his track was different from that of any
other deer in the woods, which was not a thing to be desired. He was not
crippled, however, for he could still leap almost, if not quite, as far
as ever, and run almost as fast.
He continued to grow and prosper, and the next summer he raised a pair
of forked antlers with two tines each.
And now he is well started down the runway of life, and we must leave
him to travel by himself for two or three years. He ranged the woods far
and near, and came to know them as a man knows his own house; but no
matter what places he visited, the old haunts that his mother had shown
him were the best of all, as the deer have learned by the experience of
generation after generation. He always came back again to the
Glimmerglass, and as the seasons went by I often saw his broad,
spreading hoof-print on the sandy beach where they two had so often
walked in that first summer. He evidently had plenty of company, and was
probably enjoying life, for all around were other foot-prints that were
narrow and delicately pointed, as a deer's should be. Some of them, of
course, were his own, left by his three perfect feet; but others were
those of his friends and acquaintances, and it is quite possible that
some of the tiniest and daintiest were made by his children.
That beach is a delightful place for a promenade on a summer night, and
besides the deer-tracks one can sometimes find there the trails of the
waddling porcupines, the broad, heavy print left by a black bear as he
goes shambling by, and the handwriting of many another of the
woods-people. Strange and interesting scenes must often be enacted on
the smooth, hard sand that lies between the woods and the water, and it
is a pity that the show always comes to a sudden close if any would-be
spectators appear, and that we never see anything but the foot-prints of
the performers.
With each recurring hunting season the Buck and the other deer that made
their homes around the Glimmerglass were driven away for a time. A few
stayed, or at least remained as near as they dared; but compared with
summer the neighborhood was almost depopulated. And in his fourth year,
in spite of all his efforts to keep out of harm's way, the Buck came
very near losing his life at the hands of a man who had really learned
how to hunt--not one of the farmers who went ramming about the woods,
shooting at everything in sight, and making noise enough to startle even
the porcupines.
One afternoon, late in the autumn, the judge left his court-room in
Detroit and started for his house. He bought an evening paper as he
boarded the street-car; and, as Fate would have it, the first thing that
met his eye as he unfolded it was the forecast for upper Michigan:
"Colder; slight snow-fall; light northerly winds." The judge folded the
paper again and put it in his pocket, and all the rest of the way home
he was dreaming of things that he had seen before--of the white and
silent woods, of deer-tracks in the inch-deep snow, of the long
still-hunt under dripping branches and gray November skies, of a huge
buck feeding unconcernedly beneath the beech-trees, of nutty venison
steaks broiling on the coals, and, finally, of another pair of antlers
for his dining-room. Court had adjourned for three days, and that night
he took the train for the north. And while he travelled, the snow came
down softly and silently, melting at first as fast as it fell, and then,
as the cold grew sharper, clothing the woods in a thin, white robe, the
first gift of the coming winter.
Next day the Buck was lying behind a fallen tree, chewing his cud, when
the breeze brought him a whiff of an unpleasant human odor. He jumped up
and hurried away, and the judge heard him crash through the bushes, and
searched until he had found his trail. An hour later, as the Buck was
nosing for beechnuts in the snow, a rifle cracked and a bullet went
zipping by and carried off the very tip of his left antler. He dropped
his white flag and was off like a shot.
Chase a wounded deer, and he will run for miles; leave him alone, and if
he is badly hurt he will soon lie down. The chances are that he will
never get up again. The judge knew that the Buck was hit, for he had
seen his tail come down. But was he hit hard? There was no blood on the
trail, and the judge decided to follow.
The Buck hurried on, but before long his leaps began to grow shorter.
After a mile or so he stopped, looked back, and listened. The woods were
very, very still, and for all that he could see or hear there was not
the least sign of danger. Yet he was afraid, and in a few minutes he
pushed on again, though not as rapidly as before. As the short afternoon
wore away he travelled still more slowly, and his stops were longer and
more frequent. And at last, just before sunset, as he stood and watched
for the enemy who might or might not be on his trail, he heard a twig
snap, and saw a dark form slip behind a tree. This time he ran as he had
never run before in all his life.
The judge spent the night at the nearest lumber-camp, and the next
morning he was out again as soon as he could see, following his own
trail back to where he had left that of the Buck. On the way he crossed
the tracks of two other deer, but they had no temptations for him. He
wanted to solve the mystery of that spreading hoof-print, and to make
sure that his shot had not been a clean miss. And now began a day which
was without precedent in the Buck's whole history. Those woods are not
the best in the world for a deer who has to play hide-and-seek with a
man, for there are few bare ridges or half-wooded slopes from which he
can look back to see if anyone is following him. Even the glades and the
open cranberry swamps are small and infrequent. An almost unbroken
forest sweeps away in every direction, and everywhere there is cover for
the still-hunter. And when the ground is carpeted with snow an inch and
a half deep, as it was then, and at every step a deer must leave behind
him a trail as plain as a turnpike road, then it is not strange if he
feels that he has run up against a decidedly tough proposition. Eyes,
ears, and nose are all on the alert, and all doing their level best, but
what eye can penetrate the cedar swamp beyond a few yards; or what ear
can always catch the tread of a moccasin on the moss and the snow before
it comes within rifle range; or what nose, no matter how delicate, can
detect anything but what happens to lie in its owner's path, or what the
wind chooses to bring it? Many a foe had crossed the Buck's trail in the
course of his life; but none had ever followed him like this--silently
and relentlessly--slowly, but without a moment's pause. A few leaps were
always enough to put the judge out of sight, and half an hour's run left
him far behind; but in a little while he was there again, creeping
cautiously through the undergrowth, and peering this way and that for a
glimpse of a plump, round, blue-gray body. Once he fired before the deer
knew that he was at hand, and if a hanging twig had not turned the
bullet a trifle from its course, the still-hunt would have ended then
and there.
But late in the afternoon the Buck thought that he had really shaken his
pursuer off, and the judge was beginning to think so, too. They had not
seen each other for two or three hours, the day was nearly over, and
there were signs of a change in the weather. If the Buck could hold out
till nightfall, and then the snow should melt before morning, he would
be comparatively safe.
In his fear of the enemy lurking in the rear, he had forgotten all other
dangers; and without quite realizing what he was doing he had come back
to the Glimmerglass, and was tramping once more up and down the old
familiar runways. Presently he came upon a huge maple, lying prostrate
on the ground. He walked around its great bushy head and down toward its
foot; and there he found a broad, saucer-shaped hollow, left when the
tree was torn up by the roots in some wild gale. On one side rose a mass
of earth, straight as a stone wall and four or five feet in height; and
against its foot lay one of the most tempting beds of dead leaves that
he had ever seen, free from snow, dry as a whistle, soft and downy. The
sight of it was too much for him. He was very weary, his limbs fairly
ached with fatigue, and for the last hour his spread hoof had given him
a good deal of pain. His enemy was nowhere in sight, and in spite of his
misgivings he sank down on the couch with a sigh of comfort, and began
to chew his cud.
The judge was about ready to give up for the night when he, too, came
upon that fallen maple. He saw the wall of earth and twisted roots, with
the deer-tracks leading toward it; and slowly, softly, silently, he
crept down toward the Buck's shelter.
There was no wind that evening, and the woods seemed perfectly still;
but now, unnoticed by the judge, a faint, faint puff came wandering
among the trees, as if on purpose to warn the deer of his danger.
Suddenly he started, sniffed the air, and was up and away like a
race-horse--not leaping nor bounding now, but running low, with his head
down, and his antlers laid back on his neck. If he had been in the cedar
swamp he would have escaped unhurt, but up in the hardwood the trees do
not stand so close, and one can see a little farther. The judge fired
before he could get out of sight, and he dropped with three ribs broken
and a bullet lodged behind his right shoulder. He was up again in an
instant, but there were blood-stains on the snow where he had lain, and
this time the judge did not follow. Instead of giving chase he went
straight back to the lumber-camp, feeling almost as sure of that new
pair of antlers as if he had carried them with him.
The Buck ran a little way, with his flag lowered and the blood spurting,
and then he lay down to rest, just as the judge knew he would. The
bleeding soon stopped, but it left him very weak and tired, and that
night was the most miserable he had ever known. The darkness settled
down thick and black over the woods, the wind began to blow, and by and
by the rain commenced to fall--first a drizzle, and then a steady pour.
Cold and wet, wounded and tired and hungry, the Buck was about as
wretched as it is possible for a mortal to be. And yet that rain was the
one and only thing that could save him. Under its melting touch the snow
began to disappear, and before morning the ground was bare again. Even
the blood-stains were washed away. It would take a better nose than the
judge's to track him now.
Yet the danger was not over, by any means. The judge knew very nearly
where to look for him, and could probably find him if he did not get up
and move on. And to move on, or even to rise to his feet, seemed utterly
impossible. The least motion sent the most exquisite pain shooting
through his whole body, and I believe he would have died where he lay,
either at the hands of the judge or from exhaustion, if another man
hadn't come along. The judge would have advanced slowly and quietly, and
the deer might never have known he was coming till a rifle bullet hit
him; but this man's errand must have been a different one, for he came
striding noisily through the trees and bushes and over the dead leaves,
whistling "I Want Yer, Ma Honey," at the top of his whistle. If you are
obliged to be out in the woods during the hunting season, and don't care
to kill anything, it is always best to make as much noise as you can.
There is less danger that some other fool will take you for a deer and
shoot you dead. The Buck heard him, of course, and tried to rise, only
to sink back with a groan. He couldn't do it, or at least he thought he
couldn't. But when the man came around a little balsam only two rods
away, then his panic got the better of his pain, and he jumped up and
made off at a clumsy, limping run. Every joint seemed on fire, and he
ached from the top of his head to the toes of that poor left hind-foot.
But after the first plunge it was not quite so bad. The motion took some
of the stiffness out of his limbs, and by the time the judge arrived he
was a mile away and was thinking about breakfast.
We must do the sportsman the justice of saying that his remorse was very
keen when he stepped aboard the train that night, bound for Detroit. He
had wounded a deer and had let it get away from him, to suffer, and
probably to die a painful, lingering death. The whole day--the last of
the hunting season and of his court recess--had been spent in an
unavailing search; not merely because he wanted some venison and a pair
of antlers to carry home with him, but because he wanted to put the Buck
out of his misery. He had failed everywhere, and he felt sorry and
ashamed, and wished he had stayed at home. But, as it happened, the Buck
did not want to be put out of his misery. Just as the judge took the
train he was lying down for the night. He would be stiff when he rose
again, but not as stiff as he had been that morning. He would be weak
and tired, but he would still be able to travel and find food. He would
lose his plumpness and roundness, no doubt, and lose them very rapidly.
The winter would probably be a hard one, with such a misfortune as this
at its very beginning. But no matter, it would pass. He wasn't the first
Buck who had had his ribs smashed by an injection of lead and had lived
to tell the tale.
The next year it was his antlers that got him into trouble--his antlers
and his quarrelsomeness. Two round, black, velvet-covered knobs had
appeared in spring on the top of his head, and had pushed up higher and
higher till they formed cylindrical columns, each one leaning outward
and a little backward. They were hot as fever with the blood that was
rushing through them, building up the living masonry; and at the upper
ends, where the work was newest, they were soft and spongy, and very
sensitive, so that the least touch was enough to give pain. Longer and
longer they grew, and harder and harder; by and by curving forward and
inward; and one after another the tines appeared. And at last, in the
early autumn, the tall towers of bone were complete, the blood ceased to
course through them, and the Buck rubbed them against the tree-trunks
until the velvety skin was all worn off, and they were left smooth and
brown and polished. They were a handsome pair, spreading and branching
very gracefully over his forehead, and bearing four tines to each beam.
It is a mistake to suppose, as so many people do, that the number of
tines on each antler invariably corresponds to the number of years that
its owner has lived; but it very often does, especially before he has
passed the prime of life.
No sooner were the antlers finished than the Buck began to grow fat. He
had been eating heartily for months, but he hadn't been able to put much
flesh on his ribs as long as he had that big, bony growth to feed. Bucks
and does are alike in this, that for both of them the summer is a season
of plenty, but not of growing plump and round and strong. The
difference between them is that the does give their strength and
vitality to the children they are nursing, while the bucks pile theirs
up on their own foreheads.
[Illustration: "_The buck was nearing the prime of life._"]
And there was another change which came with the autumn. Through the
summer he had been quiet and gentle, and had attended very strictly to
his own affairs; but now the life and vigor and vitality which for weeks
and months had been pouring into that tall, beautiful structure on his
forehead were all surging like a tide through his whole body; and he
became very passionate and excitable, and spent much time in rushing
about the woods in search of other deer, fighting those of his own sex,
and making love to the does. The year was at its high-water mark, and
the Buck was nearing his prime. Food was plenty; everywhere the
beechnuts were dropping on the dry leaves; the autumn sunshine was warm
and mellow; the woods were gay with scarlet and gold and brown, and the
very taste of the air was enough to make one happy. Was it any wonder if
he sometimes felt as if he would like to fight every other buck in
Michigan, and all of them at once?
One afternoon in October he fought a battle with another buck who was
very nearly his match in size and strength--a battle that came near
being the end of both of them. There was a doe just vanishing among the
bushes when the fuss began, and the question at issue was which should
follow her and which shouldn't. It would be easy enough to find her,
for, metaphorically speaking, "her feet had touched the meadows, and
left the daisies rosy." Wherever she went, a faint, faint fragrance
clung to the dead leaves, far too delicate for a human nose to detect,
yet quite strong enough for a buck to follow. But the trail wasn't broad
enough for two, and the first thing to be done was to have a scrap and
see which was the better and more deserving deer. And, as it turned out,
the scent grew cold again, and the doe never heard that eager patter of
hoofs hurrying down the runway behind her.
The bucks came together like two battering-rams, with a great clatter
and clash of antlers, but after the first shock the fight seemed little
more than a pushing-match. Each one was constantly trying to catch the
other off his guard and thrust a point into his flesh, but they never
succeeded. A pair of widely branching antlers is as useful in warding
off blows as in delivering them. Such a perfect shield does it make,
when properly handled, that at the end of half an hour neither of the
bucks was suffering from anything but fatigue, and the issue was as far
as ever from being settled. There was foam on their lips, and sweat on
their sides; their mouths were open, and their breath came in gasps;
every muscle was working its hardest, pushing and shoving and guarding;
and they drove each other backward and forward through the bushes, and
ploughed up the ground, and scattered the dry leaves in their struggles;
and yet there was not a scratch on either shapely body.
Finally, they backed off and rushed together again with such violence
that our Buck's antlers were forced apart just a trifle, and his enemy's
slipped in between them. There was a little snap as they sprang back
into position, and the mischief was done. The two foes were locked
together in an embrace which death itself could not loosen.
The next few weeks were worse than a nightmare. If one went forward, the
other had to go backward; and neither could go anywhere or do anything
without getting the consent of the other or else carrying him along by
main force. Many things could not be done at all--not even when both
were willing and anxious to do them. They could not run or leap. They
could not see, except out of the corners of their eyes. They would never
again toss those beautiful antlers in the air, for they had come
together with their heads held low, and in that position they must
remain. They could not even lie down without twisting their necks till
they ached as if they were breaking. With their noses to the ground, and
with anger and misery in their hearts, they pushed and hauled each other
this way and that through the woods. And wherever they went, they were
always struggling and fighting and striving for every mouthful of food
that came within reach. It was little enough that they found at the
best, and it would have been better for both of them if they could have
agreed to divide it evenly, but of course that would have been asking
too much of deer nature. Each took all he could get, and at first they
were so evenly matched that each secured somewhere near his fair share.
They spied a beechnut on the ground, or a bit of lichen, or a tender
twig; and together they made a dive for it. Two noses were thrust
forward--no, not forward, sidewise--and two mouths were open to grasp
the precious morsel which would enable its possessor to keep up the
fight a little longer. Sometimes one got it, and sometimes the other;
but from the very beginning our Buck was a shade the stronger, and his
superiority grew with every mouthful that he managed to wrest from his
fellow-prisoner. Both of them were losing flesh rapidly, but he kept his
longer than the other. And at last they reached the point where, by
reason of his greater strength, he got everything and the other nothing,
and then the end was near. It would have come long before if both had
not been in prime condition on the day of the battle.
[Illustration: "_Wherever they went they were always struggling and
fighting._"]