ith a thrill in my spine that was not altogether
of the elements, while the deer moved uneasily back and forth. The doe
wavered between fear and fascination; but the fawn knew no fear, or
perhaps he knew only the great fear of the uproar around him; for he
came close beside me, rested his nose an instant against the light, then
thrust his head between my arm and body, so as to shield his eyes, and
pressed close against my side, shivering with cold and fear, pleading
dumbly for my protection against the pitiless storm.

I refrained from touching the little thing, for no wild creature likes
to be handled, while his mother called in vain from the leafy darkness.
When I turned to go he followed me close, still trying to thrust his
face under my arm; and I had to close the light with a sharp click
before he bounded away down the road, where one who knew better than
I how to take care of a frightened innocent was, no doubt, waiting to
receive him.

I gave up everything else but fishing after that, and took to watching
the deer; but there was little to be learned in the summer woods. Once
I came upon the big buck lying down in a thicket. I was following his
track, trying to learn the Indian trick of sign-trailing, when he shot
up in front of me like Jack-in-a-box, and was gone before I knew what it
meant. From the impressions in the moss, I concluded that he slept with
all four feet under him, ready to shoot up at an instant's notice, with
power enough in his spring to clear any obstacle near him. And then I
thought of the way a cow gets up, first one end, then the other, rising
from the fore knees at last with puff and grunt and clacking of joints;
and I took my first lesson in wholesome respect for the creature whom I
already considered mine by right of discovery, and whose splendid head
I saw, in anticipation, adorning the hall of my house--to the utter
discomfiture of Old Wally.

At another time I crept up to an old road beyond the little deer pond,
where three deer, a mother with her fawn, and a young spike-buck, were
playing. They kept running up and down, leaping over the trees that lay
across the road with marvelous ease and grace--that is, the two larger
deer. The little fellow followed awkwardly; but he had the spring in
him, and was learning rapidly to gather himself for the rise, and lift
his hind feet at the top of his jump, and come down with all fours
together, instead of sprawling clumsily, as a horse does.