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Anyhow, he had a pretty close call, for the shanty-boy had a revolver in his pocket. Aside from any question of heroism, I am afraid that he was not really as wise and discriminating as he looked.
His spinal cord was cut, and half his body was dead; but he would not give up even then, and he half rose on his forefeet and tried to drag himself away. The shanty-boy stepped to his side with a knife in his hand, the deer gave one loud bleat of fear and pain, and then it was all over. But by that time the doe and the Fawn were far down the runway out of sight, and out of danger.
I suppose he was afraid. And yet such were the contradictions of his nature one dark night he trotted half a mile after a shanty-boy who was going home with a haunch of venison over his shoulder, and was just gathering himself for a spring, intending to leap on him from behind, when another man appeared.
Next day they passed that way again, and saw a Canada lynx standing where the buck had fallen, licking his chops as if he had just finished a good meal. It is hard work carrying a deer through the woods, and the shanty-boy had lightened his load as much as possible. Lynxes are not nice. The mother and son pulled their freight as fast as they could travel.
One afternoon they were following a big buck down a runway all three of them minding their own business and behaving in a very orderly and peaceable manner when a shanty-boy stepped out from behind a big birch just ahead of them, and said, "Aah!" very derisively and insultingly.
The wind was blowing from them to him, and they hadn't had the least idea that he was there until they were within three rods of his tree. The buck was so startled that for an instant he simply stood still and stared, which was exactly what the shanty-boy had expected him to do. He had stopped so suddenly that his forefeet were thrust forward into the snow, and he was leaning backward a trifle.
One day he found some more snow-shoe tracks, just like those that the shanty-boy had left, and instead of running away, as he ought to have done, and as most of the animals would have had sense enough to do, he followed them up to see where they led. He wasn't particularly hungry that day, and there was absolutely no excuse for what he did.
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