ipples on the beach; and he staggered down to the margin and drank
long and deep.

That December was a mild one. The first light snow had already come and
gone, and the next two weeks were bright and sunshiny. The Buck ate as
he had never eaten before, and it was astonishing to see how rapidly he
picked up, and how much he gained before Christmas. His good luck seemed
to follow him month after month, for the winter was comparatively open,
the snow was not as deep as usual, and the spring came early. By that
time the ill effects of his terrible experience had almost entirely
disappeared, and he was in nearly as good condition as is usual with the
deer at that season of the year--which, of course, isn't really saying
very much.

Again, Nature's table was spread with good things, and again he set to
work to build a pair of antlers--a pair that should be larger and
handsomer than any that had gone before. But as the summer lengthened it
became evident that there was something wrong with those antlers, or at
least with one of them. One seemed to be quite perfect. It was
considerably longer than those of last year, its curve was just right,
and it had five tines, which was the correct number and all that he
could have asked. But the other, the left, was nothing but a straight,
pointed spike, perhaps eight inches in length, shaped almost exactly
like those of his first pair. The Buck never knew the reason for this
deformity, and I'm not at all certain about it myself, though I have a
theory. One stormy day in the early summer, a falling branch, torn from
a tree-top by the wind, had struck squarely on that growing antler, then
only a few inches long. It hurt him so that for a moment he was fairly
blind and dizzy, and it is quite possible that the soft, half-formed
bone was so injured that it could never reach its full development.
Anyhow, it made him a rather queer-looking buck, with one perfect antler
and one spike. But in everything else--except his spread hoof--he was
without spot or blemish. He had well fulfilled the promise of his youth,
and he was big and strong and beautiful. Something he had lost, no
doubt, of the grace and daintiness of his baby days; but he had also
gained much--gained in stateliness and dignity, as well as in size and
weight and strength. And even that spike antler was not without its
advantages, as he learned a little later.

As the autumn came round he was just as excitable and passionate, just