e deer, now, could only have been caught I No doubt
there were tenderhearted people in the valley who would have spared her
life, shut her up in a stable, and petted her. Was there one who
would have let her go back to her waiting-fawn? It is the business of
civilization to tame or kill.

The doe went on. She left the sawmill on John's Brook to her right; she
turned into a wood-path. As she approached Slide Brook, she saw a boy
standing by a tree with a raised rifle. The dogs were not in sight;
but she could hear them coming down the hill. There was no time for
hesitation. With a tremendous burst of speed she cleared the stream,
and, as she touched the bank, heard the "ping" of a rifle bullet in the
air above her. The cruel sound gave wings to the poor thing. In a moment
more she was in the opening: she leaped into the traveled road. Which
way? Below her in the wood was a load of hay: a man and a boy, with
pitchforks in their hands, were running towards her. She turned south,
and flew along the street. The town was up. Women and children ran to
the doors and windows; men snatched their rifles; shots were fired; at
the big boarding-houses, the summer boarders, who never have anything
to do, came out and cheered; a campstool was thrown from a veranda. Some
young fellows shooting at a mark in the meadow saw the flying deer, and
popped away at her; but they were accustomed to a mark that stood still.
It was all so sudden! There were twenty people who were just going to
shoot her; when the doe leaped the road fence, and went away across a
marsh toward the foothills. It was a fearful gauntlet to run. But nobody
except the deer considered it in that light. Everybody told what he was
just going to do; everybody who had seen the performance was a kind of
hero,--everybody except the deer. For days and days it was the subject
of conversation; and the summer boarders kept their guns at hand,
expecting another deer would come to be shot at.

The doe went away to the foothills, going now slower, and evidently
fatigued, if not frightened half to death. Nothing is so appalling to a
recluse as half a mile of summer boarders. As the deer entered the thin
woods, she saw a rabble of people start across the meadow in pursuit.
By this time, the dogs, panting, and lolling out their tongues, came
swinging along, keeping the trail, like stupids, and consequently losing
ground when the deer doubled. But, when the doe had got into the timber,
sh