The Adventures of Fleetfoot and Her Fawns Part 9

Then, suddenly, just as Old Man Lynx was pa.s.sing a snow-laden clump of spruces, he caught a little movement in their lower branches. Circling till he had the ribbon of the wind in his nostrils, he discovered that it was a covey of grouse.

Grouse! How infinitely more delicious than muskrat-more tender even than rabbit! Now indeed he was glad he had saved his appet.i.te.

CHAPTER XIV-STARVATION TIME

Fleet Foot, the Doe, would never have dreamed of taking her fawns down to the hay-stack at the Valley Farm, had not the Farmer and his Boy set her leg the summer before, and gained her confidence by their kindness.

But, though the herd had selected a south-west slope where the feeding was good, and though they had trampled the snow till it raised them higher and higher, and they could browse on the limbs of the fir trees, it was proving a cruel winter. As blizzard followed blizzard, and bark and browse alike were frozen stiff, they huddled together, weak with hunger.

Then the thought of the big hay-mow provided for the sheep and cattle proved too much for Fleet Foot, and she resolved to take the fawns, (now well grown,) slip down under cover of the early winter dusk, and there help herself to the few mouthfuls she could reach through the bars. For part of the hay stood in the open meadow, with only a canvas over top to keep it dry, and a few bars to keep it from being blown away.

The other deer of the herd, though they were starving, were far too timid to make the venture with her. To them it seemed a perilous undertaking to go so near human-kind. For they had seen many things in the woods. They had seen the Hired Man with his long black stick that spoke like thunder, and killed more surely than tooth or claw. They preferred to starve!

For Fleet Foot, the dangers of traveling alone with the fawns through the winter woods were many. First there was the chance of meeting Old Man Lynx. For now they would not have the protection of the hoofs and horns of the herd.

Then they might get lost and freeze, should another storm catch them far from the herd-yard. But, once having made up her mind, Fleet Foot whistled to the fawns and started off in a series of long, graceful bounds that carried them over one snow-bank after another.

Had they dared delay, they would have sunk to their knees in the hard, dry snow to rest for a while and nibble the tops of some bush that promised a few mouthfuls of supper, for their empty stomachs fairly hurt. And if it had been freezing in the herd-yard, with its wall of snow, and the crowding bodies that helped keep each other warm, imagine how cold Fleet Foot's little family must have been, out on the open hill-top! The savage wind and the snow-filled air made it all but impossible at times to draw breath.

But worst of all was the shadow of fear that never left the doe's anxious mother heart. The tree-trunks crackled alarmingly with the frost, keeping her alert for enemies, and the wind tore savagely through the brush. Of a sudden Fleet Foot's spine began to p.r.i.c.kle! It was one of those mysterious things that she had never been able to account for.

But it usually meant danger!

Half blindly, they had been making their way, hardly able to see in the green-black of the darkness. But they marked their path by the darker blackness of the clumps of spruce trees, which to their trained instinct pointed the way like a map.

Again a chill ran down their spine and the hair raised along the backs of their necks! Some instinct told them real danger was near-what danger, they could not know. Rolling their startled eyes behind them, they could see points of light gleaming at them through the darkness.

At length, through the winter night, came a long, shrill cry like that of a hound, only wilder and more terrifying. Then came another, and a third. It was an uncanny sound, that of the three gray wolves, watching from behind the snowy evergreens.

Fleet Foot knew, more by instinct than experience, what they were, for their like she had never seen before. Nor had any one in those woods known a winter when these ravenous beasts had come down out of the Canadian wilds. But it had been handed down from grand-sire to grand-son that once, when the snows were uncommonly deep, and half the wild folk starved and frozen, wolves had come down from the far North in search of prey.

There were three of the lean gray shapes, like collie dogs, yet so much larger and fiercer-large enough to attack even bigger game than Fleet Foot, the doe.

Should worst come to worst, she would have no more chance with even one such foe than a rabbit with a hound. It would all be a matter of which could run the faster. And she had to look out for the fawns!

Their one chance of escape lay in their nimble heels. They might, for a time, outspeed their enemies, if their strength held out. The combined hoofs and antlers of the herd might have fought off the beasts for a time, but the herd-yard was now too far away for Fleet Foot ever to reach it with the fawns before those lean gray shapes would be at their throats. The Valley Farm lay straight ahead, and her fear of man shrank to nothing beside the terrors behind her.

Yes, the one hope on the horizon lay at the Valley Farm, where the fear of man might keep the wolves from following.

And to the Farm Fleet Foot and the fawns now sped with their great, bounding strides that took whole drifts at a leap. Would their feet slip in the darkness, crippling them and leaving them helpless almost within sight of safety?

On and on they ran, and behind them through the forest crept the three gray shapes, slinking along like shadows with glowing coals for eyes.

Every now and again their barking howl, long drawn out and fearful, tore the darkness. Could they reach the Valley Farm, Fleet Foot asked herself with pounding heart?

It was hard going through the powdery snow, into which she sank dangerously every time she came to a drift too wide to leap. And the fawns were having an even harder time, the cold cutting into their lungs 'till it hurt.

At last, straight ahead, gleamed the dim lighted windows of the farmhouse. A few more bursts of speed would get them over the fence and into the pasture lot, and perhaps the wolves would stop at the boundary of man's domain. But-could they make it? Could they reach that fence before their grim pursuers?

Their eyes were fairly popping with the effort they were making. Here was a mammoth drift that in summer had been a creek, and there a patch of the higher wind-swept ground where the ice might take their hoofs from under them.

Ah! The fence at last! One leap over its smooth pyramid, and with a sobbing cough, Fleet Foot and the fawns were safe, with the wolves not ten paces behind!

Then, suddenly, the door at the farmhouse opened, throwing a long streak of lamp-light across the snow!

The wolves slunk back in fear. But so, too, did Fleet Foot. The terror of the great gray beasts behind her, all her old fear of man flooded back upon her, and what to do she did not know. She dared not go back, nor could she go forward. So she stood stock still, her fawns huddling, trembling against her sides. The sudden light half-blinded her, and made the darkness blacker. What could be its meaning? Curiosity might, at another time, have conquered fear, but now she was trembling in every joint, her spent lungs wheezing with the effort she had made. This was far different from slipping in under cover of darkness as she had planned.

"Father! Come quick! I do believe there is a deer out there-no, a doe, and two fawns!" cried the Boy of the Valley Farm, as the light from the open door threw a long ray across the barn-yard to the pasture beyond.

"Wait! I'll get her for you!" exclaimed the Hired Man, springing for his gun. But at the Boy's sharp command he dropped it, shame-faced.

Then from farther back in the evergreens came the spine-chilling howl of the gray wolves, baying their lost prey.

"Wolves, my son!" exclaimed the Farmer, joining the group in the doorway. "Wolves from Canada. It's a hard winter that has brought them down. I don't remember seeing wolves since I was a little shaver, forty years ago. And I expect that is what has driven the deer so close. s.h.!.+

Come out-side." The two closed the door behind them. "We mustn't frighten them away, or the wolves will get them, sure."

CHAPTER XV.-THE GRAY WOLVES.

"That's what I heard," exclaimed the Boy at the Valley Farm. "Wolves!

Imagine! I didn't suppose they ever came into these woods."

"It's been an unusual winter," his father a.s.sured him, stepping out into the snowy barn-yard. "I saw them once when I was ten years old. But I thought they had been driven away for good. I suppose the rabbits all froze, up where they come from, and they got so starved they were driven to it. They've certainly been chasing these deer."

For as their eyes became accustomed to the snowy darkness, they could once more see the shadowy forms of Fleet Foot and the fawns by the hay-mow.

"It must have been those wolves that I heard ten minutes back," said the Farmer, rubbing his unmittened hands together.

"Just see how hollow these poor things look!" exclaimed the Boy. "They must be starving. Let's go back inside, so they won't be afraid."

They met the Hired Man just starting forth with his gun. "I'm going for those wolves," he hastened to explain.

"That's more like it," said the Farmer.

Here they were at last, beside the hay-stack, Fleet Foot and her fawns.

And as three disappointed howls arose from the woods at their back, the famished deer turned to s.n.a.t.c.h their first ravenous mouthfuls from between the bars of the crib. They paused in their banquet only long enough to stare at the Hired Man, as with snow-shoes strapped to his feet, he strode down the Old Logging Road,-Lop Ear, the Hound, at his heels.

"Who-o-o-o!" howled the three gray wolves from the blackness of the woods. The Hired Man raised his thunder-stick and fired-straight between a pair of the red eyes that gleamed at him through the night.