your problem is almost solved, night comes and the trail ends.

When I could walk again easily vacation was over, the law was on,
and the deer were safe.



SNOW BOUND

March is a weary month for the wood folk. One who follows them
then has it borne in upon him continually that life is a
struggle,--a keen, hard, hunger-driven struggle to find enough to
keep a-going and sleep warm till the tardy sun comes north again
with his rich living. The fall abundance of stored food has all
been eaten, except in out-of-the-way corners that one stumbles
upon in a long day's wandering; the game also is wary and hard
to find from being constantly hunted by eager enemies.

It is then that the sparrow falleth. You find him on the snow, a
wind-blown feather guiding your eye to the open where he fell in
mid-flight; or under the tree, which shows that he lost his grip
in the night. His empty crop tells the whole pitiful story, and
why you find him there cold and dead, his toes curled up and his
body feather-light. You would find more but for the fact that
hunger-pointed eyes are keener than yours and earlier abroad, and
that crow and jay and mink and wildcat have greater interest than
you in finding where the sparrow fell.

It is then, also, that the owl, who hunts the sparrow o' nights,
grows so light from scant feeding that he cannot fly against the