ven was pecking away, but
again the brown bump heaved and the raven leaped to a near perch.
"Wah--wah--wah--wo--hoo--yow--wow--rrrrrr-rrrr-rrrr"--and the other
ravens joined in.

Rolf had no weapons but his bow, his pocket knife, and a hatchet. He
took the latter in his hand and walked gently forward; the hollow-voiced
ravens "haw--hawed," then flew to safe perches where they chuckled like
ghouls over some extra-ghoulish joke.

The lad, coming closer, witnessed a scene that stirred him with mingled
horror and pity. A great, strong buck--once strong, at least--was
standing, staggering, kneeling there; sometimes on his hind legs,
spasmodically heaving and tugging at a long gray form on the ground,
the body of another buck, his rival, dead now, with a broken neck, as
it proved, but bearing big, strong antlers with which the antlers of the
living buck were interlocked as though riveted with iron, bolted with
clamps of steel. With all his strength, the living buck could barely
move his head, dragging his adversary's body with him. The snow marks
showed that at first he had been able to haul the carcass many yards;
had nibbled a little at shoots and twigs; but that was when he was
stronger, was long before. How long? For days, at least, perhaps a week,
that wretched buck was dying hopelessly a death that would not come. His
gaunt sides, his parched and lolling tongue, less than a foot from the
snow and yet beyond reach, the filmy eye, whose opaque veil of death was
illumined again with a faint fire of fighting green as the new foe came.
The ravens had picked the eyes out of the dead buck and eaten a hole in
its back. They had even begun on the living buck, but he had been able
to use one front foot to defend his eyes; still his plight could scarce
have been more dreadful. It made the most pitiful spectacle Rolf had
ever seen in wild life; yes, in all his life. He was full of compassion
for the poor brute. He forgot it as a thing to be hunted for food;
thought of it only as a harmless, beautiful creature in dire and
horrible straits; a fellow-being in distress; and he at once set about
being its helper. With hatchet in hand he came gently in front, and
selecting an exposed part at the base of the dead buck's antler he
gave a sharp blow with the hatchet. The effect on the living buck was
surprising. He was roused to vigorous action that showed him far from
death as yet. He plunged, then pulled backward, carrying with him the