d lightly away, to be followed by the youngster,
clearing low trunks with an effortless leap, or bending down with
catlike suppleness when they came to a log upraised so that they might
pass below.

He never again got a chance to shoot at them, though more than once he
saw the same two tracks, or believed they were the same, as for some
cause never yet explained, Deer were scarcer in that unbroken forest
than they were in later years when clearings spread around.

He never again saw them; but he saw the mother once--he thought it was
the same--she was searching the woods with her nose, trying the ground
for trails; she was nervous and anxious, evidently seeking. Thor
remembered a trick that Corney had told him. He gently stooped, took up
a broad blade of grass, laid it between the edges of his thumbs, then
blowing through this simple squeaker he made a short, shrill bleat, a
fair imitation of a Fawn's cry for the mother, and the Deer, though a
long way off, came bounding toward him. He snatched his gun, meaning to
kill her, but the movement caught her eye. She stopped. Her mane
bristled a little; she sniffed and looked inquiringly at him. Her big
soft eyes touched his heart, held back his hand; she took a cautious
step nearer, got a full whiff of her mortal enemy, bounded behind a big
tree and away before his merciful impulse was gone. "Poor thing," said
Thor, "I believe she has lost her little one."

Yet once more the Boy met a Lynx in the woods. Half an hour after
seeing the lonely Deer he crossed the long ridge that lay some miles
north of the shanty. He had passed the glade where the great basswood
lay when a creature like a big bob-tailed Kitten appeared and looked
innocently at him. His gun went up, as usual, but the Kitten merely
cocked its head on one side and fearlessly surveyed him. Then a second
one that he had not noticed before began to play with the first, pawing
at its tail and inviting its brother to tussle.

Thor's first thought to shoot was stayed as he watched their gambols,
but the remembrance of his feud with their race came back. He had
almost raised the gun when a fierce rumble close at hand gave him a
start, and there, not ten feet from him, stood the old one, looking big
and fierce as a Tigress. It was surely folly to shoot at the young ones
now. The boy nervously dropped some buckshot on the charge while the
snarling growl rose and fell, but before he was ready to shoot at her
the old one h