ose them very rapidly.
The winter would probably be a hard one, with such a misfortune as this
at its very beginning. But no matter, it would pass. He wasn't the first
Buck who had had his ribs smashed by an injection of lead and had lived
to tell the tale.

The next year it was his antlers that got him into trouble--his antlers
and his quarrelsomeness. Two round, black, velvet-covered knobs had
appeared in spring on the top of his head, and had pushed up higher and
higher till they formed cylindrical columns, each one leaning outward
and a little backward. They were hot as fever with the blood that was
rushing through them, building up the living masonry; and at the upper
ends, where the work was newest, they were soft and spongy, and very
sensitive, so that the least touch was enough to give pain. Longer and
longer they grew, and harder and harder; by and by curving forward and
inward; and one after another the tines appeared. And at last, in the
early autumn, the tall towers of bone were complete, the blood ceased to
course through them, and the Buck rubbed them against the tree-trunks
until the velvety skin was all worn off, and they were left smooth and
brown and polished. They were a handsome pair, spreading and branching
very gracefully over his forehead, and bearing four tines to each beam.
It is a mistake to suppose, as so many people do, that the number of
tines on each antler invariably corresponds to the number of years that
its owner has lived; but it very often does, especially before he has
passed the prime of life.

No sooner were the antlers finished than the Buck began to grow fat. He
had been eating heartily for months, but he hadn't been able to put much
flesh on his ribs as long as he had that big, bony growth to feed. Bucks
and does are alike in this, that for both of them the summer is a season
of plenty, but not of growing plump and round and strong. The
difference between them is that the does give their strength and
vitality to the children they are nursing, while the bucks pile theirs
up on their own foreheads.

[Illustration: "_The buck was nearing the prime of life._"]

And there was another change which came with the autumn. Through the
summer he had been quiet and gentle, and had attended very strictly to
his own affairs; but now the life and vigor and vitality which for weeks
and months had been pouring into that tall, beautiful structure on his
forehead were all surging like a tide t