,
listening, testing every Merry Little Breeze, but all in vain.

Then, one never-to-be-forgotten night, as he drank at the Laughing
Brook, a strange feeling swept over him. It was the feeling of being
watched. Lightfoot lifted his beautiful head and a slight movement
caught his quick eye and drew it to a thicket not far away. The silvery
light of gentle Mistress Moon fell full on that thicket, and thrust out
from it was the most beautiful head in all the Great World. At least,
that is the way it seemed to Lightfoot, though to tell the truth it was
not as beautiful as his own, for it was uncrowned by antlers. For a long
minute Lightfoot stood gazing. A pair of wonderful, great, soft eyes
gazed back at him. Then that beautiful head disappeared.

With a mighty bound, Lightfoot cleared the Laughing Brook and rushed
over to the thicket in which that beautiful head had disappeared. He
plunged in, but there was no one there. Frantically he searched, but
that thicket was empty. Then he stood still and listened. Not a sound
reached him. It was as still as if there were no other living things in
all the Green Forest. The beautiful stranger had slipped away as
silently as a shadow.

All the rest of that night Lightfoot searched through the Green Forest
but his search was in vain. The longing to find that beautiful stranger
had become so great that he fairly ached with it. It seemed to him that
until he found her he could know no happiness.

CHAPTER XXXIII

A DIFFERENT GAME OF HIDE AND SEEK

Once more Lightfoot the Deer was playing hide and seek in the Green
Forest. But it was a very different game from the one he had played just
a short time before. You remember that then it had been for his life
that he had played, and he was the one who had done all the hiding. Now,
he was "it", and some one else was doing the hiding. Instead of the
dreadful fear which had filled him in that other game, he was now filled
with longing,--longing to find and make friends with the beautiful
stranger of whom he had just once caught a glimpse, but of whom every
day he found tracks.

At times Lightfoot would lose his temper. Yes, Sir, Lightfoot would lose
his temper. That was a foolish thing to do, but it seemed to him that he
just couldn't help it. He would stamp his feet angrily and thrash the
bushes with his great spreading antlers as if they were an enemy with
whom he was fighting. More than once when he did this a pair of great,