--one like
those he had seen in the mud long ago, another a large unmistakable
print, the mark of the Sandhill Stag.

How the wild beast in his heart did ramp--he wanted to howl like a
wolf on a hot scent; and away they went through woods and hills, the
trail and Yan and the inner wolf.

[Illustration]

All day he followed and, grown crafty himself, remarked each sign, and
rejoiced to find that nowhere had the deer been bounding. And when the
sun was low the sign was warm, so laying aside unneeded things, Yan
crawled along like a snake on the track of a hare. All day the animals
had zigzagged as they fed; their drink was snow, and now at length
away across a lawn in a bank of brush Yan spied a _something_ flash. A
bird perhaps; he lay still and watched. Then gray among the gray
brush, he made out a great log, and from one end of it rose two
gnarled oaken boughs. Again the flash--the move of a restless ear,
then the oak boughs moved and Yan trembled, for he knew that the log
in the brush was the form of the Sandhill Stag. So grand, so charged
with _life_. He seemed a precious, sacred thing--a king, fur-robed and
duly crowned. To think of shooting now as he lay unconscious,
resting, seemed an awful crime. But Yan for weeks and months had pined
for this. His chance had come, and shoot he must. The long, long
strain grew tighter yet--grew taut--broke down, as up the rifle went.
But the wretched thing kept wabbling and pointing all about the little
glade. His breath came hot and fast and choking--so much, so very
much, so clearly all, hung on a single touch. He laid the rifle down,
revulsed--and trembled in the snow. But he soon regained the mastery,
his hand was steady now, the sights in line--'twas but a deer out
yonder. But at that moment the Stag turned full Yan's way, with those
regardful eyes and ears, and nostrils too, and gazed.

"Darest thou slay me?" said an uncrowned, unarmed king once, as his
eyes fell on the assassin's knife, and in that clear, calm gaze the
murderer quailed and cowed.

So trembled Yan; but he knew it was only stag-fever, and he despised
it then as he came in time to honor it; and the beast that dwelt
within him fired the gun.

The ball splashed short. The buck sprang up and the doe appeared.
Another shot; then, as they fled, another and another. But away the
deer went, lightly drifting across the low round hills.

V

[Illustration]

He followed their trail for some time, bu