gh the crust, were not half the regular distance apart.
A little way from the path I found her, cold and stiff, her throat
horribly torn by the pack which had run her to death. Her hind feet were
still doubled under her, just as she had landed from her last despairing
jump, when the tired muscles could do no more, and she sank down without
a struggle to let the dogs do their cruel work.

I had barely read all this, and had not yet finished measuring the
largest tracks to see if it were her old enemy that, as dogs frequently
do, had gathered a pirate band about him and led them forth to the
slaughter of the innocents, when a far-away cry came stealing down
through the gray woods. Hark! the eager yelp of curs and the leading
hoot of a hound. I whipped out my knife to cut a club, and was off for
the sounds on a galloping run, which is the swiftest possible gait on
snowshoes.

There were no deer paths here; for the hardwood browse, upon which deer
depend for food, grew mostly on the other sides of the ridge. That the
chase should turn this way, out of the yard's limits showed the dogs'
cunning, and that they were not new at their evil business. They had
divided their forces again, as they had undoubtedly done when hunting
the poor doe whose body I had just found. Part of the pack hunted down
the ridge in full cry, while the rest lay in wait to spring at the
flying game as it came on and drive it out of the paths into the deep
snow, where it would speedily be at their mercy. At the thought I
gripped the club hard, promising to stop that kind of hunting for good,
if only I could get half a chance.

Presently, above the scrape of my snowshoes, I heard the deer coming,
cr-r-runch! cr-r-runch! the heavy plunges growing shorter and fainter,
while behind the sounds an eager, whining trail-cry grew into a fierce
howl of canine exultation. Something was telling me to hurry, hurry;
that the big buck I had so often hunted was in my power at last, and
that, if I would square accounts, I must beat the dogs, though they were
nearer to him now than I. The excitement of a new kind of hunt, a hunt
to save, not to kill, was tingling all over me when I circled a dense
thicket of firs with a rush, and there he lay, up to his shoulders in
the snow before me.

He had taken his last jump. The splendid strength which had carried him
so far was spent now to the last ounce. He lay resting easily in the
snow, his head outstretched on the crust be