a hilltop overlooking the road. They had come down the hill,
picking their way among the stumps of a burned clearing, stepping
carefully in each other's tracks so as to make but a single
trail. At the road they had leaped clear across from one thicket
to another, leaving never a trace on the bare even whiteness. One
might have passed along the road a score of times without
noticing that game had crossed. There was no doubt now that these
were deer that had been often hunted, and that had learned their
cunning from long experience.

I followed them rapidly till they began feeding in a little
valley, then with much caution, stealing from tree to thicket,
giving scant attention to the trail, but searching the woods
ahead; for the last "sign" showed that I was now but a few
minutes behind the deer. There they were at last, two graceful
forms gliding like gray shadows among the snow-laden branches.
But in vain I searched for a lordly head with wide rough antlers
sweeping proudly over the brow; my buck was not there. Scarcely
had I made the discovery when there was a whistle and a plunge up
on the hill on my left, and I had one swift glimpse of him, a
splendid creature, as he bounded away.

By way of general precaution, or else led by some strange sixth
sense of danger, he had left his companions feeding and mounted
the hill, where he could look back on his own track. There he had
been watching me for half an hour, till I approached too near,
when he sounded the alarm and was off. I read it all from the
trail a few moments later.

It was of no use to follow him, for he ran straight down wind.