LIGHTFOOT'S CLEVER TRICK
Lightfoot the Deer is smart. Yes, Sir, Lightfoot the Deer is smart. He
has to be, especially in the hunting season, to save his life. If he
were not smart he would have been killed long ago. He never makes the
foolish mistake of thinking that other people are not smart. He knew
that the hunter who had started out to follow him early that morning was
not one to be easily discouraged or to be fooled by simple tricks. He
had a very great respect for the smartness of that hunter. He knew that
he couldn't afford to be careless for one little minute.
The certainty of danger is sometimes easier to bear than the uncertainty
of not knowing whether or not there really is any danger. Lightfoot felt
that if he could know just where the hunter was, he himself would know
better what to do. The hunter might have become discouraged and given up
following him. In that case he could rest and stop worrying. It would be
better to know that he was being followed than not to know. But how was
he to find out? Lightfoot kept turning this over and over in his mind as
he traveled through the Green Forest. Then an idea came to him.
"I know what I'll do. I know just what I'll do," said Lightfoot to
himself. "I'll find out whether or not that hunter is still following me
and I'll get a little rest. Goodness knows, I need a rest."
Lightfoot bounded away swiftly and ran for some distance, then he turned
and quickly, but very, very quietly, returned in the direction from
which he had just come but a little to one side of his old trail. After
a while he saw what he was looking for, a pile of branches which
woodchoppers had left when they had trimmed the trees they had cut down.
This was near the top of a little hill. Lightfoot went up the hill and
stopped behind the pile of brush. For a few moments he stood there
perfectly still, looking and listening. Then, with a little sigh of
relief, he lay down, where, without being in any danger of being seen
himself, he could watch his old trail through the hollow at the bottom
of the hill. If the hunter were still following him, he would pass
through that hollow in plain sight.
For a long time Lightfoot rested comfortably behind the pile of brush.
There was not a suspicious movement or a suspicious sound to show that
danger was abroad in the Green Forest. He saw Mr. and Mrs. Grouse fly
down across the hollow and disappear among the trees on the other side.
He saw Unc' Billy Possum looking over a hollow tree and guessed that
Unc' Billy was getting ready to go into winter quarters. He saw Jumper
the Hare squat down under a low-hanging branch of a hemlock-tree and
prepare to take a nap. He heard Drummer the Woodpecker at work drilling
after worms in a tree not far away. Little by little Lightfoot grew easy
in his mind. It must be that that hunter had become discouraged and was
no longer following him.