whole end of the bluff was under my eye, and no buck standing at
bay or running wildly along the bank to escape. The tracks moved
straight on to the edge in great leaps; my heart quickened its
beat as if I were nerving myself for a supreme effort. Would he
do it? would he dare?

A foot this side the brink the lichens were torn away where the
sharp hoofs had cut down to solid earth. Thirty feet away, well
over the farther bank and ten feet below the level where I stood,
the fresh earth showed clearly among the hoof-torn moss. Far
below, the river fretted and roared in a white rush of rapids. He
had taken the jump, a jump that made one's nostrils spread and
his breath come hard as he measured it with his eye. Somewhere,
over in the spruces' shadow there, he was hiding, watching me no
doubt to see if I would dare follow.

That was the last of the autumn woods for me. If I had only seen
him--just one splendid glimpse as he shot over and poised in
mid-air, turning for the down plunge! That was my only regret as
I turned slowly away, the river singing beside me and the shadows
lengthening along the home trail.



WINTER TRAILS

The snow had come, and with it a Christmas holiday. For weeks I
had looked longingly out of college windows as the first
tracking-snows came sifting down, my thoughts turning from books
and the problems of human wisdom to the winter woods, with their