of semi-modern garb, as they drove away on
the trail with a wild, excited gleam in every eye!

It was nearly night before the trail warmed up, but even then, in
spite of Yan's earnest protest, they drove on in the sleigh. And soon
they came to where the trail told of seven keen observers looking
backward from a hill, then an even sevenfold chain of twenty-five-foot
bounds. The hunters got no glimpse at all, but followed till the night
came down, then hastily camped in the snow.

In the morning they followed as before, and soon came to where seven
spots of black, bare ground showed where the deer had slept.

[Illustration]

Now when the trail grew warm Yan insisted on hunting on foot. He
trailed the deer into a great thicket, and knew just where they were
by a grouse that flew cackling from its farther side.

He arranged a plan, but his friends would not await the blue-jay's
'all-right' note, and the deer escaped. But finding themselves hard
pressed, they split their band, two going one way and five another.
Yan kept with him one, Duff, and leaving the others to follow the five
deer, he took up the twofold trail. Why? Because in it was the great
broad track he had followed for two years back.

On they went, overtaking the deer and causing them again to split. Yan
sent Duff after the doe, while he stuck relentlessly to the track of
the famous Stag. As the sun got low, the chase led to a great
half-wooded stretch, in a country new to him; for he had driven the
Stag far from his ancient range. The trail again grew hot, but just as
Yan felt sure he soon would close, two distant shots were heard, and
the track of the Stag as he found it then went off in a fear-winged
flight that might keep on for miles.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Yan went at a run, and soon found Duff. He had had two long shots at
the doe. The second he thought had hit her. Within half a mile they
found blood on the trail; within another half-mile the blood was no
more seen and the track seemed to have grown very large and strong.
The snow was drifting and the marks not easily read, yet Yan knew
very soon that the track they were on was not that of the wounded doe,
but was surely that of her antlered mate. Back on the trail they ran
till they solved the doubt, for there they learned that the Stag,
after making his own escape, had come back to change off: an old, old
trick of the hunted whereby one deer will cleverly join on and carry
on the