It isn't often Sammy Jay worries about anybody but himself.
Truth to tell, he doesn't worry about himself very often. You see,
Sammy is smart, and he knows he is smart. Under that pointed cap
of his are some of the cleverest wits in all the Green Forest.
Sammy seldom worries about himself because he feels quite able to
take care of himself.
But Sammy Jay was worrying now. He was worrying about Lightfoot
the Deer. Yes, Sir, Sammy Jay was worrying about Lightfoot the
Deer. For two days he had been unable to find Lightfoot or any
trace of Lightfoot. But he did find plenty of hunters with
terrible guns. It seemed to him that they were everywhere in the
Green Forest. Sammy began to suspect that one of them must have
succeeded in killing Lightfoot the Deer.
Sammy knew all of Lightfoot's hiding-places. He visited every one
of them. Lightfoot wasn't to be found, and no one whom Sammy met
had seen Lightfoot for two days.
Sammy felt badly. You see, he was very fond of Lightfoot.
You remember it was Sammy who warned Lightfoot of the coming of
the hunter on the morning when the dreadful hunting season began.
Ever since the hunting season had opened, Sammy had done his
best to make trouble for the hunters. Whenever he had found
one of them he had screamed at the top of his voice to warn every
one within hearing just where that hunter was. Once a hunter had
lost his temper and shot at Sammy, but Sammy had suspected that
something of the kind might happen, and he had taken care to keep
just out of reach. Sammy had known all about the chasing of
Lightfoot by the hounds. Everybody in the Green Forest had known
about it. You see, everybody had heard the voices of those
hounds. Once, Lightfoot had passed right under the tree in which
Sammy was sitting, and a few moments later the two hounds had
passed with their noses to the ground as they followed Lightfoot's trail.
That was the last Sammy had seen of Lightfoot. He had been able to save
Lightfoot from the hunters, but he couldn't save him from the hounds.
The more Sammy thought things over, the more he worried. "I am
afraid those hounds drove him out where a hunter could get a shot
and kill him, or else that they tired him out and killed him
themselves," thought Sammy. "If he were alive, somebody certainly
would have seen him and nobody has, since the day those hounds
chased him. I declare, I have quite lost my appetite worrying
about him. If Lightfoot is dead, and I am almost sure he is, the
Green Forest will never seem the same."