Allen Chaffee

“ Yes, the one hope on the horizon lay at the Valley Farm, where the fear of man might keep the wolves from following.
And to the Farm Fleet Foot and the fawns now sped with their great, bounding strides that took whole drifts at a leap. Would their feet slip in the darkness, crippling them and leaving them helpless almost within sight of safety?
On and on they ran, and behind them through the forest crept the three gray shapes, slinking along like shadows with glowing coals for eyes. Every now and again their barking howl, long drawn out and fearful, tore the darkness. ”

“ The tree-trunks crackled alarmingly with the frost, keeping her alert for enemies, and the wind tore savagely through the brush. Of a sudden Fleet Foot’s spine began to prickle! It was one of those mysterious things that she had never been able to account for. But it usually meant danger!
Half blindly, they had been making their way, hardly able to see in the green-black of the darkness. But they marked their path by the darker blackness of the clumps of spruce trees, which to their trained instinct pointed the way like a map. ”

“ For out of the woods pranced another buck, belling a saucy challenge to a fight. Fleet Foot withdrew to a safe distance, as did the fawns, and watched admiringly as the two bucks came together; and the excitement, no less than the keen, frosty air, set the blood to racing hot through their young veins.
Stamping their steel-shod hoofs defiantly and tossing their antlered heads in the pride of their strength, the two bucks bellowed their battle challenge. ”

“ But it had been handed down from grand-sire to grand-son that once, when the snows were uncommonly deep, and half the wild folk starved and frozen, wolves had come down from the far North in search of prey.
There were three of the lean gray shapes, like collie dogs, yet so much larger and fiercer—large enough to attack even bigger game than Fleet Foot, the doe.
Should worst come to worst, she would have no more chance with even one such foe than a rabbit with a hound. It would all be a matter of which could run the faster. And she had to look out for the fawns! ”

“ Fleet Foot and the starving fawns nibbled and nibbled at the hay-mow,—for the time, at least, safe and happy. But could they ever get back to the herd-yard, with those wolves still at large?
For once they were in luck. The Hired Man was not the only hunter who followed the wolves that night. Old Man Lynx, that fierce, furry fellow with tassels on his ears and claws that could rend like steel hooks, had also been driven down to the Valley by the winter’s famine. He, too, heard the howling of the wolves. ”

“ Thus, without so much as wondering what made this strange beast so fearless, he leaped open-jawed upon the little porcupine. There was just one howl of agony, as he clamped his jaws on those barbed quills, and it was not the porcupine who gave it!
Whining and clawing at his tortured mouth, the wolf rolled about in the snow-drift, choking and spluttering in mingled wrath and terror. For Unk-Wunk’s terrible barbed quills were working deeper and deeper into the roof of his mouth. Finally he rolled over on them, and they pierced through to the brain. ”

“ The fawns danced and capered to the music of the bird song that filled the woods, while Fleet Foot cropped all sorts of delicious tid-bits,—now a clump of oyster mushrooms growing shelf-like on a fallen log, and now a bunch of blue-berries, plump and juicy and sun-sweet. Life was one long holiday. ”

“ Great skill and experience is needed for a deer to know where and how to put his feet down when he makes those great leaps of his. He may land, now among the rocks, now in marshy ground, slipping over mosses and scrambling over tree-trunks. It would be only too easy to break one of those slender legs, and be at the mercy of his enemies.
By the time the fawns were six weeks old, they had learned just how to land without stumbling and hurting their frail ankles. Then, one day, young Frisky Fox, hiding at the edge of the clearing, saw a strange sight. ”

“ Only once they had taken the plunge, the little fellows decided to swim out to a reedy islet where they could rest. And the fox pup didn’t think it worth while to get his fur wet. For when his great brush of a tail gets wet, it is so heavy that it weighs him down, and he can’t run nearly so fast, so the mice all get away.
Of course the fawns thought it was all their own cleverness, and you should have heard them telling Fleet Foot about it when she found them there!
The fawns never tired of watching the life that stirred everywhere about them, their great soft eyes filled with pleasant wonder. ”

“ And he rolled himself up into a prickly ball in the top of a swaying birch tree.
“Old Man Lynx!” thought Frisky Fox, fairly beside himself with frenzy. Hanging there heels uppermost in the grapevine, he was as helpless as a mouse in a trap. And here was the great cat, his ancient enemy, creeping, creeping, creeping through the shadows, his nose sniffing this way and that for the scent that would tell him where to find a good supper. ”

“ With the first crash of the Hired Man’s thunder stick, he led his little herd to a distant cedar swamp, where they were soon joined by other groups as nervous as themselves at this new peril that could pick them out and wound them from so far away.
Sometimes, even then, a member of the band would have a race for his life.—And sometimes he never came back! But Fleet Foot and her five pulled through in safety.
Then the thunder-stick ceased to roar in the woods about Mount Olaf. ”

“ Sometimes one of the little fellows would slip and stumble.
“I have it,” Father Red Fox told himself. “The fawns are learning to make a quick turn. Because they’d break their legs if they were to stumble that way in the underbrush.”
The old fox knew that he could never catch one by the usual methods. He did wonder, though, if he might not corner one by trickery. So, gliding from tree-trunk to tree-trunk, he crept nearer the unsuspecting little school, keeping always on the side where the wind could tell no tales! ”

“ The gray wolf did not know how terrible those needle-like quills can be, when once they get in one’s paw. For they are barbed like a hook on the end, and when they stick into one, it hurts worse to pull them out than to leave them where they are. The wood folk that lived around Lone Lake knew enough to leave Unk-Wunk strictly alone. So, he was never afraid. But the wolf did not know. And when the little porcupine, instead of climbing higher, out of his reach, came lazily back down the trunk and began to gnaw the frozen bark, the wolf thought it was easy game. ”

“ Old Man Lynx raised his whiskered face and yowled an answering challenge.
“Ye-ow-w-w!” he screamed at them defiantly. Then he bent his head to snatch another mouthful of the meat he knew the wolves were on their way to claim.
“Ye-ow-w-w!” he screamed again, as the wolf cry swept nearer. This time he saw two pairs of red eyes gleaming in the darkness.
“I got here first, and I’ll make it hot for the first one that comes within reach of my claws,” he warned them, in tones they understood without words. ”

“ Come quick! I do believe there is a deer out there—no, a doe, and two fawns!” cried the Boy of the Valley Farm, as the light from the open door threw a long ray across the barn-yard to the pasture beyond.
“Wait! I’ll get her for you!” exclaimed the Hired Man, springing for his gun. But at the Boy’s sharp command he dropped it, shame-faced.
Then from farther back in the evergreens came the spine-chilling howl of the gray wolves, baying their lost prey.
“Wolves, my son!” exclaimed the Farmer, joining the group in the doorway. “Wolves from Canada. It’s a hard winter that has brought them down. ”

“ They might, for a time, outspeed their enemies, if their strength held out. The combined hoofs and antlers of the herd might have fought off the beasts for a time, but the herd-yard was now too far away for Fleet Foot ever to reach it with the fawns before those lean gray shapes would be at their throats. The Valley Farm lay straight ahead, and her fear of man shrank to nothing beside the terrors behind her. ”

“ Nearer and nearer the edge of the precipice he crowded. Now one hind foot had actually slipped off the rock face, and he had to struggle to regain his balance.
Then the one thing happened that could have saved him. Fleet Foot reached the spot. Rearing furiously on her hind legs, she struck at Baldy’s head with her sharp hoofs, tearing great wounds in his scalp. Then, with a scream of rage and pain, he raised his wings and slanted swiftly upward, wings hissing, to his granite peak. ”

“ But Frisky was too wise a pup to think for an instant he could catch one. And so he finally trotted off to stay his appetite with field mice. But he told Father Red Fox about it that night in the den on the hillside, and the older fox made up his mind that next day he would be the one to watch when the fawns came to the meadow. If he couldn’t catch one, at least he liked to know all that went on in the woods. One never knew when an odd bit of knowledge might come in handy to a fellow that lives by his wits. ”

“ For the power to climb is the one great advantage that cats have over all members of the dog tribe.
Old Man Lynx himself was lean with famine, for the great storm had made hunting all but impossible for him. Not so much as a wood-mouse had shown its tracks on the snow for days. And there had been nothing in his rocky den save the dried and frozen bones of dinners long since past.
To surrender his supper to-night might mean starvation and actual death to him. But so it did to the wolves. It was to be a fight for life! ”

“ I’ve plenty of hay this year, (more than enough for the stock,) and I’m going to pitch a little of it out, after this, every time the storms make it hard for the deer. I declare, I can’t bear to think of their being so starved!” And he gazed thoughtfully out over the drifting snow, as he thought how Fleet Foot had braved everything to reach their hay-stack.
“Hurray!” shouted the Boy. “May I pitch some out right now? Poor things, there wasn’t much they could reach between the bars,” and he gazed at the dainty footprints the fawns had made the night before. ”

“ Alas for two such little helpless ones!—Had they but looked above their heads, instead of at the circling shadow, they would have discovered that it was a giant bird that made it. In short, it was Baldy the Eagle, the ogre of the air,—and an ogre that especially delighted in having fawn for supper! ”

“ The fawns marveled as they watched, day after day, till at last the trout all went back into deep water for the winter, leaving the eggs behind them. And Fleet Foot explained how, next spring, each leathery brown egg that had escaped the cannibal fish and the muskrats would be burst open by the baby trout inside, and out would wiggle the teeniest, weeniest troutlet you can possibly imagine! ”

“ Next morning, no sooner had the birds begun to chirp themselves awake, than Mother Fleet Foot fed the fawns as usual and ate her own light breakfast of lily pads, Then she lined up the two fawns before her.
“Children,” she said, in deer language, “you have a great deal to learn before ever you can take care of yourselves in these woods. ”

“ From now on we are going to have lessons.”
“Yes, Mother,” bleated the little ones, “but what are lessons.”
“They are going to be as much like play as we can make them,” said Fleet Foot. “You need practice in running, and we must play ‘Follow the Leader’ every day. Mother, of course, will be the leader. It will be lots of fun.”
The fawns waggled their ears in delight.
“Now listen, both of you,” said Fleet Foot. “This means danger! Follow me!” And she stamped her foot three times and whistled, as she leaped away through the bushes. ”

“ Bow-wow! Wow-wow-wow!” Here was a footprint, unless his nose deceived him! What’s more, they had passed that way not ten minutes since! It was but a matter of following the trail, and he would be nipping at their heels and driving them back to the Farm.
“Wow-wow-wow!” he bayed; and Frisky, the Red Fox Pup, heard and came trotting to peek at him and see what it was all about.
The sound filled the fawns with uneasiness. They had always been afraid of Lop Ear, with his nipping and yapping around the cattle.
“Children,” bade Fleet Foot sternly, “hurry to that clump of bracken and lie down. ”

“ The other deer of the herd, though they were starving, were far too timid to make the venture with her. To them it seemed a perilous undertaking to go so near human-kind. For they had seen many things in the woods. They had seen the Hired Man with his long black stick that spoke like thunder, and killed more surely than tooth or claw. They preferred to starve!
For Fleet Foot, the dangers of traveling alone with the fawns through the winter woods were many. First there was the chance of meeting Old Man Lynx. For now they would not have the protection of the hoofs and horns of the herd. ”

“ One still, sunshiny morning, after they had drunk their fill at a cool green pool of Beaver Brook, they started up the mountain-side for a day under the shade of the last fringe of evergreens before one came to the bare, rocky ridges, where it got too cold for anything to grow, except in sheltered crevices. ”