at, Peter?"

"At the idea of you hunting a man," replied Peter. "Your heart is all
right, Lightfoot, but you are too timid and gentle to frighten any one.
Big as you are I wouldn't fear you."

With a single swift bound Lightfoot sprang out in front of Peter. He
stamped his sharp hoofs, lowered his handsome head until the sharp
points of his antlers, which people call horns, pointed straight at
Peter, lifted the hair along the back of his neck, and made a motion as
if to plunge at him. His eyes, which Peter had always thought so soft
and gentle, seemed to flash fire.

"Oh!" cried Peter in a faint, frightened-sounding voice and leaped to
one side before it entered his foolish little head that Lightfoot was
just pretending.

Lightfoot chuckled. "Did you say I couldn't frighten any one?" he
demanded.

"I--I didn't know you could look so terribly fierce," stammered Peter.
"Those antlers look really dangerous when you point them that way.
Why--why--what is that hanging to them? It looks like bits of old fur.
Have you been tearing somebody's coat, Lightfoot?" Peter's eyes were
wide with wonder and suspicion.

CHAPTER II

LIGHTFOOT'S NEW ANTLERS

Peter Rabbit was puzzled. He stared at Lightfoot the Deer a wee bit
suspiciously. "Have you been tearing somebody's coat?" he asked again.
He didn't like to think it of Lightfoot, whom he always had believed
quite as gentle, harmless, and timid as himself. But what else could he
think?

Lightfoot slowly shook his head. "No," said he, "I haven't torn
anybody's coat."

"Then what are those rags hanging on your antlers?" demanded Peter.

Lightfoot chuckled. "They are what is left of the coverings of my new
antlers," he explained.

"What's that? What do you mean by new antlers?" Peter was sitting up
very straight, with his eyes fixed on Lightfoot's antlers as though he
never had seen them before.

"Just what I said," retorted Lightfoot. "What do you think of them? I
think they are the finest antlers I've ever had. When I get the rest of
those rags off, they will be as handsome a set as ever was grown in the
Green Forest."

Lightfoot rubbed his antlers against the trunk of a tree till some of
the rags hanging to them dropped off.

Peter blinked very hard. He was trying to understand and he couldn't.
Finally he said so.

"What kind of a story are you trying to fill me up with?" he demanded
indignantly. "Do you mean to tell me that those are not the antlers that