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 tune 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.