stood like statues, unable to see, but obeying their leader
promptly.

All three were frightened and excited, not simply curious, as
they would have been had they found me in their path
unexpectedly. The widespread nostrils and heaving sides showed
that they had been running hard. Those in the rear (I could see
them over the top of the scrub spruce, behind which I crouched in
the path) said in every muscle: "Go on! No matter what it is, the
danger behind is worse. Go on, go on!" Insistence was in the air.
The doe felt it and bounded aside. The crust had softened in the
sun, and she plunged through it when she struck, cr-r-runch,
cr-r-runch, up to her sides at every jump. The others followed,
just swinging their heads for a look and a sniff at me, springing
from hole to hole in the snow, and making but a single track. A
dozen jumps and they struck another path and turned into it,
running as before down the ridge. In the swift glimpses they gave
me I noticed with satisfaction that, though thin and a bit ragged
in appearance, they were by no means starved. The veteran leader
had provided well for his little family.

I followed their back track up the ridge for perhaps half a mile,
when another track made me turn aside. Two days before, a single
deer had been driven out of the yard at a point where three paths
met. She had been running down the ridge when something in front
met her and drove her headlong out of her course. The soft edges
of the path were cut and torn by suspicious claw marks.

I followed her flight anxiously, finding here and there, where
the snow had been softest, dog tracks big and little. The deer