foot'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."

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE HUNTING SEASON ENDS

The very worst things come to an end at last. No matter how bad a thing
is, it cannot last forever. So it was with the hunting season for
Lightfoot the Deer. There came a day when the law protected all Deer,--a
day when the hunters could no longer go searching for Lightfoot.

Usually there was great rejoicing among the little people of the Green
Forest and the Green Meadows when the hunting season ended and they knew
that Lightfoot would be in no more danger until the next hunting
season. But this year there was no rejoicing. You see, no one could find
Lightfoot. The last seen of him was when he was running for his life
with two hounds baying on his trail and the Green Forest filled with
hunters watching for a chance to shoot him.

Sammy Jay had hunted everywhere through the Green Forest. Blacky the
Crow, whose eyes are quite as sharp as those of Sammy Jay, had joined in
the search. They had found no trace of Lightfoot. Paddy the Beaver said
that for three days Lightfoot had not visited his pond for a drink.
Billy Mink, who travels up and down the Laughing Brook, had looked
for Lightfoot's footprints in the soft earth along the banks and had
found only old ones. Jumper the Hare had visited Lightfoot's favorite
eating places at night, but Lightfoot had not been in any of them.

[Illustration: "I tell you what it is," said Sammy Jay to Bobby Coon,
"something has happened to Lightfoot."]

"I tell you what it is," said Sammy Jay to Bobby Coon, "something has
happened to Lightfoot. Either those hounds caught him and killed him, or
he was shot by one of those hunters. The Green Forest will never be the
same without him. I don't think I shall want to come over here very
much. There isn't one of all the other people who live in the Green
F