ook the train for the north. And while he travelled, the snow came
down softly and silently, melting at first as fast as it fell, and then,
as the cold grew sharper, clothing the woods in a thin, white robe, the
first gift of the coming winter.

Next day the Buck was lying behind a fallen tree, chewing his cud, when
the breeze brought him a whiff of an unpleasant human odor. He jumped up
and hurried away, and the judge heard him crash through the bushes, and
searched until he had found his trail. An hour later, as the Buck was
nosing for beechnuts in the snow, a rifle cracked and a bullet went
zipping by and carried off the very tip of his left antler. He dropped
his white flag and was off like a shot.

Chase a wounded deer, and he will run for miles; leave him alone, and if
he is badly hurt he will soon lie down. The chances are that he will
never get up again. The judge knew that the Buck was hit, for he had
seen his tail come down. But was he hit hard? There was no blood on the
trail, and the judge decided to follow.

The Buck hurried on, but before long his leaps began to grow shorter.
After a mile or so he stopped, looked back, and listened. The woods were
very, very still, and for all that he could see or hear there was not
the least sign of danger. Yet he was afraid, and in a few minutes he
pushed on again, though not as rapidly as before. As the short afternoon
wore away he travelled still more slowly, and his stops were longer and
more frequent. And at last, just before sunset, as he stood and watched
for the enemy who might or might not be on his trail, he heard a twig
snap, and saw a dark form slip behind a tree. This time he ran as he had
never run before in all his life.

The judge spent the night at the nearest lumber-camp, and the next
morning he was out again as soon as he could see, following his own
trail back to where he had left that of the Buck. On the way he crossed
the tracks of two other deer, but they had no temptations for him. He
wanted to solve the mystery of that spreading hoof-print, and to make
sure that his shot had not been a clean miss. And now began a day which
was without precedent in the Buck's whole history. Those woods are not
the best in the world for a deer who has to play hide-and-seek with a
man, for there are few bare ridges or half-wooded slopes from which he
can look back to see if anyone is following him. Even the glades and the
open cranberry swamps are small and infreq