where one who knew better than I how to take care of a frightened
innocent was, no doubt, waiting to receive him.

I gave up everything else but fishing after that, and took to
watching the deer; but there was little to be learned in the
summer woods. Once I came upon the big buck lying down in a
thicket. I was following his track, trying to learn the Indian
trick of sign-trailing, when he shot up in front of me like
Jack-in-a-box, and was gone before I knew what it meant. From the
impressions in the moss, I concluded that he slept with all four
feet under him, ready to shoot up at an instant's notice, with
power enough in his spring to clear any obstacle near him. And
then I thought of the way a cow gets up, first one end, then the
other, rising from the fore knees at last with puff and grunt and
clacking of joints; and I took my first lesson in wholesome
respect for the creature whom I already considered mine by right
of discovery, and whose splendid head I saw, in anticipation,
adorning the hall of my house--to the utter discomfiture of Old
Wally.

At another time I crept up to an old road beyond the little deer
pond, where three deer, a mother with her fawn, and a young
spike-buck, were playing. They kept running up and down, leaping
over the trees that lay across the road with marvelous ease and
grace--that is, the two larger deer. The little fellow followed
awkwardly; but he had the spring in him, and was learning rapidly
to gather himself for the rise, and lift his hind feet at the top
of his jump, and come down with all fours together, instead of
sprawling clumsily, as a horse does.