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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32319-h.zip b/32319-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c34948f --- /dev/null +++ b/32319-h.zip diff --git a/32319-h/32319-h.htm b/32319-h/32319-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cb717a --- /dev/null +++ b/32319-h/32319-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1710 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Trail of the Sandhill Stag, by Ernest Thompson Seton. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + p { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + visibility: hidden; + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + img.cap { float:left; + margin: 0 0.5em 0 0; + position:relative; } + p.cap_1 { text-indent: -0.8em; } + p.cap_2 { text-indent: -1.2em; } + p.cap_3 { text-indent: -1.1em; } + p.cap_4 { text-indent: -1.5em; } + p.cap_5 { text-indent: -1.6em; } + div.drop p:first-letter { color:red; } + div.drop p { margin-bottom:0; } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {text-align: center; margin-left: 18%; margin-right: 18%; + font-size: 90%;} + td.illustration {text-align: left; padding-right: 3em; vertical-align: bottom;} + td.illopage {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} + .bigtext {font-size: 120%;} + .smalltext {font-size: 80%;} + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .leftclear {clear: left;} + .rightclear {clear: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Trail of the Sandhill Stag, by Ernest Seton-Thompson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Trail of the Sandhill Stag + +Author: Ernest Seton-Thompson + +Release Date: May 10, 2010 [EBook #32319] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF THE SANDHILL STAG *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Steven desJardins +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 371px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="371" height="500" alt="cover" title="" /> +</div> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 387px;"><a name="ill002" id="ill002"></a> +<img src="images/ill002.jpg" width="387" height="500" alt="The Track of a Mother Blacktail" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="caption">"The Track of a Mother Blacktail was suddenly joined by +two Little Ones' Tracks."</p> + + + +<h1>THE TRAIL OF THE SANDHILL STAG</h1> + +<p class="center">AND 60 DRAWINGS</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/ill003a.png" width="400" height="177" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 60px;"> +<img src="images/ill003b.png" width="60" height="75" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center">BY<br /> +<span class="bigtext">ERNEST THOMPSON SETON</span><br /> +<span class="smalltext">Naturalist to the Government of Manitoba</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 9em; margin-bottom: 0em; clear: right;">Author of</p> +<p style="text-align: right; margin-top: 0em;">Wild Animals I Have Known<br /> +Art Anatomy of Animals<br /> +Mammals of Manitoba<br /> +Birds of Manitoba</p> + +<p class="center">Published by Charles Scribner's Sons New York City A.D. 1914</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 150px;"> +<img src="images/ill004.png" width="150" height="179" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1899, by<br /> +Ernest Seton-Thompson</p> + +<p class="leftclear">First<br /> +Impression<br /> +October<br /> +12<br /> +1899</p> + +<p>Second<br /> +Impression<br /> +February<br /> +16<br /> +1900</p> + +<p>Third<br /> +Impression<br /> +December<br /> +20<br /> +1900</p> + +<p>Fourth<br /> +Impression<br /> +July<br /> +16<br /> +1901</p> + +<p>Fifth<br /> +Impression<br /> +August<br /> +18<br /> +1902</p> + +<p>Sixth<br /> +Impression<br /> +October<br /> +29<br /> +1904</p> + +<p>Seventh<br /> +Impression<br /> +November<br /> +30<br /> +1908</p> + +<p>Eighth<br /> +Impression<br /> +November<br /> +1<br /> +1910</p> + +<p>Ninth<br /> +Impression<br /> +April<br /> +10<br /> +1913</p> + +<p>Tenth<br /> +Impression<br /> +December<br /> +10<br /> +1913</p> + +<p class="center">THE SCRIBNER PRESS</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center bigtext"><b>This Book is dedicated to the Old-timers of the Big Plain of Manitoba.</b></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/ill005.png" width="500" height="182" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 257px;"> +<img src="images/ill007.png" width="257" height="450" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="poem leftclear"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0 bigtext"><b>To the Reader:</b><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2 bigtext"><b>These are the best days of my life.</b><br /></span> +<span class="i2 bigtext"><b>These are my golden days.</b><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In this Book the designs for title-page, cover, and +general make-up, and also the literary revision, were +done by Mrs. Grace Gallatin Thompson Seton.</p></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 120px;"> +<img src="images/ill009.png" width="120" height="124" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 60px;"> +<img src="images/ill011.png" width="60" height="58" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h2>List of full-page Drawings</h2> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="List of Illustrations"> +<tr> +<td class="illustration">"The Track of a Mother Blacktail +was suddenly joined by two Little +Ones' Tracks"</td> +<td class="illopage"><a href="#ill002">frontispiece</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="illustration">The Trail Spring</td> +<td class="illopage"><a href="#ill014">page 14</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="illustration">"Wingless Birds"</td> +<td class="illopage"><a href="#ill022">22</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="illustration">"Sat down in the Moonlit Snow"</td> +<td class="illopage"><a href="#ill037">37</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="illustration">"Seven Deer, ... their Leader a wonderful<br /> +Buck"</td> +<td class="illopage"><a href="#ill056">56</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="illustration">"The Doe was walking slowly"</td> +<td class="illopage"><a href="#ill063">63</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="illustration">"Scanned the White World for his foe"</td> +<td class="illopage"><a href="#ill080">80</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="illustration">The Stag</td> +<td class="illopage"><a href="#ill089">89</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ill014" id="ill014"></a> +<img src="images/ill014.jpg" width="500" height="373" alt="The Trail Spring." title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption">The Trail Spring.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="newchapter"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + + +<div class="drop"> +<img src="images/ill015a.png" alt="I" width="81" height="85" class="cap" /> +<p class="cap_1">It was a burning hot day. Yan was wandering in pursuit of birds among +the endless groves and glades of the Sandhill wilderness about +Carberry. The water in the numerous marshy ponds was warm with the sun +heat, so Yan cut across to the trail spring, the only place in the +country where he might find a cooling drink. As he stooped beside it +his eye fell on a small hoof-mark in the mud, a sharp and elegant +track.</p> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 66px;"> +<img src="images/ill015b.png" width="66" height="90" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>He had never seen one like it before, but it gave him a thrill, for he +knew at once it was the track of a <i>wild deer</i>.</p> + +<p>"There are no deer in those hills now," the settlers told Yan. Yet +when the first snow came that autumn he, remembering the hoof-mark in +the mud, quietly took down his rifle and said to himself, "I am going +into the hills every day till I bring out a deer." Yan was a tall, raw +lad in the last of his teens. He was no hunter yet, but he was a +tireless runner, and filled with unflagging zeal. Away to the hills he +went on his quest day after day, and many a score of long white miles +he coursed, and night after night he returned to the shanty without +seeing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> even a track. But the longest chase will end. On a far, hard +trip in the southern hills he came at last on the trail of a deer—dim +and stale, but still a deer-trail—and again he felt a thrill as the +thought came, "At the other end of that line of dimples in the snow is +the creature that made them; each one is fresher than the last, and it +is only a question of time for me to come up with their maker."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/ill017.png" width="300" height="123" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 54px;"> +<img src="images/ill018a.png" width="54" height="80" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>At first Yan could not tell by the dim track which way the animal had +gone. But he soon found that the mark was a little sharper at one end, +and rightly guessed that that was the toe; also he noticed that the +spaces shortened in going up hill,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> and at last a clear imprint in a +sandy place ended all doubt. Away he went with a new fire in his +blood, and an odd prickling in his hair; away on a long, hard follow +through interminable woods and hills, with the trail growing fresher +as he flew. All day he followed, and toward night it turned and led +him homeward. On it went, soon over familiar ground, back to the +sawmill, then over Mitchell's Plain, and at last into the thick poplar +woods near by, where Yan left it when it was too dark to follow. He +was only seven miles from home, and this he easily trotted in an hour.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/ill018b.png" width="500" height="149" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="leftclear">In the morning he was back to take it up, but instead of an old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +track, there were now so many fresh ones, crossing and winding, that +he could not follow at all. So he prowled along haphazard, until he +found two tracks so new that he could easily trail them as before, and +he eagerly gave chase. As he sneaked along watching the tracks at his +feet instead of the woods ahead, he was startled by two big-eared, +grayish animals springing from a little glade into which he had +stumbled. They trotted to a bank fifty yards away and then turned to +gaze at him.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 141px;"> +<img src="images/ill019.png" width="141" height="120" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>How they did seem to <i>look</i> with their great ears! How they spellbound +him by the soft gaze that he felt rather than saw! He knew what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> they +were. Had he not for weeks been holding ready, preparing and hungering +for this very sight! And yet how useless were his preparations; how +wholly all his preconcepts were swept away, and a wonder-stricken</p> + +<p>"Oh-h-h!" went softly from his throat.</p> + +<p>As he stood and gazed, they turned their heads away, though they still +seemed to look at him with their great ears, and trotting a few steps +to a smoother place, began to bound up and down in a sort of play. +They seemed to have forgotten him, and it was bewildering to see the +wonderful effortless way in which, by a tiny toe-touch, they would +rise six<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> or eight feet in air. Yan stood fascinated by the strange +play of the light-limbed, gray-furred creatures. There was no haste or +alarm in their movements; he would watch them until they began to run +away—till they should take fright and begin the labored straining, +the vast athletic bounds, he had heard of. And it was only on noting +that they were rapidly fading into the distance that he realized that +<i>now</i> they were running away, <i>already</i> were flying for safety.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 313px;"><a name="ill022" id="ill022"></a> +<img src="images/ill022.jpg" width="313" height="500" alt=""Wingless Birds."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Wingless Birds."</span> +</div> + +<p>Higher and higher they rose each time; gracefully their bodies swayed +inward as they curved along some bold ridge, or for a long space the +buff-white scutcheons that they bore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> behind them seemed hanging in +the air while these wingless birds were really sailing over some deep +gully.</p> + +<p>Yan stood intensely gazing until they were out of sight, and it never +once occurred to him to shoot.</p> + +<p>When they were gone he went to the place where they had begun their +play. Here was one track; where was the next? He looked all around and +was surprised to see a blank for fifteen feet; and then another blank, +and on farther, another: then the blanks increased to eighteen feet, +then to twenty, then to twenty-five and sometimes thirty feet. Each of +these playful, effortless bounds covered a space of eighteen to thirty +feet.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>Gods above! They do not run at all, they fly; and once in a while come +down again to tap the hill-tops with their dainty hoofs.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"I'm glad they got away," said Yan. "They've shown me something to-day +that never man saw before. I know that no one else has ever seen it, +or he would have told of it."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;"> +<img src="images/ill025.png" width="425" height="170" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="newchapter"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<div class="drop"> +<img src="images/ill026a.png" alt="Y" width="70" height="74" class="cap" /> +<p class="cap_2">Yet when the morning came the old wolfish instinct was back in his +heart. "I must away to the hills," he said, "take up the trail, and be +a beast of the chase once more; my wits against their wits; my +strength against their strength; and against their speed, my gun."</p> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/ill026b.png" width="400" height="102" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="rightclear">Oh! those glorious hills—an endless rolling stretch of sandy dunes, +with lakes and woods and grassy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> lawns between. Life—life on every +side, and life within, for Yan was young and strong and joyed in +powers complete. "These are the best days of my life," he said, "these +are my golden days." He thought it then, and oh, how well he came to +know it in the after years!</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 218px;"> +<img src="images/ill027.png" width="218" height="450" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>All day at a long wolf-lope he would go and send the white hare and +the partridge flying from his path, and swing along and scan the +ground for sign and the telltale inscript in the snow, the oldest of +all writing, more thrillful of interest by far than the finest glyph +or scarab that ever Egypt gave to modern day.</p> + +<p>But the driving snow was the wild deer's friend, as the driven snow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +was his foe, and down it came that day and wiped out every trace.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/ill028.png" width="500" height="135" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="leftclear">The next day and the next still found Yan careering in the hills, but +never a track or sign did he see. And the weeks went by, and many a +rolling mile he ran, and many a bitter day and freezing night he +passed in the snow-clad hills, sometimes on a deer-trail but more +often without; sometimes in the barren hills, and sometimes led by +woodmen's talk to far-off sheltering woods, and once or twice he saw +indeed the buff-white bannerets go floating up the hills. Sometimes +reports came of a great buck that frequented the timber-lands near the +sawmill, and more than once Yan found his trail, but never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> got a +glimpse of him; and the few deer there were now grew so wild with long +pursuit that he had no further chances to shoot, and the hunting +season passed in one long train of failures.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 163px;"> +<img src="images/ill029.png" width="163" height="200" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Bright, unsad failures they. He seemed indeed to come back +empty-handed, but he really came home laden with the best spoils of +the chase, and he knew it more and more, as time went on, till every +day, at last, on the clear unending trail, was a glad triumphant +march.</p> + +<p class="newchapter"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 197px;"> +<img src="images/ill030.png" width="197" height="300" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>The year went by. Another season came, and Yan felt in his heart the +hunter fret once more. Even had he not, the talk he heard would have +set him all afire.</p> + +<p>It told of a mighty buck that now lived in the hills—the Sandhill +Stag they called him. It told of his size, his speed, and the crowning +glory that he bore on his brow, a marvellous growth like sculptured +bronze with gleaming ivory points.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 283px;"> +<img src="images/ill031a.png" width="283" height="450" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>So when the first tracking snow came, Yan set out with some comrades +who had caught a faint reflected glow of his ardor. They drove in a +sleigh to the Spruce Hill, then scattered to meet again at sunset. The +woods about abounded in hares and grouse, and the powder burned all +around. But no deer-track was to be found, so Yan quietly left the +woods and set off alone for Kennedy's Plain, where last this wonderful +buck had been seen.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 149px;"> +<img src="images/ill031b.png" width="149" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>After a few miles he came on a great deer-track, so large and sharp +and broken by such mighty bounds that he knew it at once for the trail +of the Sandhill Stag.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/ill032.png" width="200" height="158" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>With a sudden rush of strength to his limbs he led away like a wolf on +the trail. And down his spine and in his hair he felt as before, and +yet as never before, the strange prickling that he knew was the same +as makes the wolf's mane bristle when he hunts. He followed till night +was near and he must needs turn, for the Spruce Hill was many miles +away.</p> + +<p>He knew that it would be long after sunset before he could get there, +and he scarcely expected that his comrades would wait for him, but he +did not care; he gloried in the independence of his strength, for his +legs were like iron and his wind was like a hound's. Ten miles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> were +no more to him than a mile to another man, for he could run all day +and come home fresh, and always when alone in the lone hills he felt +within so glad a gush of wild exhilaration that his joy was full.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 180px;"> +<img src="images/ill033a.png" width="180" height="129" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/ill034.png" width="250" height="248" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;"> +<img src="images/ill033b.png" width="180" height="130" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>So when his friends, feeling sure that he could take care of himself, +drove home and left him, he was glad to be left. They seemed rather to +pity him for imposing on himself such long, toilsome tramps. They had +no realization of what he found in those wind-swept hills. They never +once thought what they and all their friends and every man that ever +lived has striven for and offered his body, his brain, his freedom, +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> his life to buy; what they were vainly wearing out their lives in +fearful, hopeless drudgery to gain, that boy was daily finding in +those hills. The bitter, biting, blizzard wind was without, but the +fire of health and youth was within; and at every stride in his daily +march, it was <i>happiness</i> he found, and he knew it. And he smiled such +a gentle smile when he thought of those driven home in the sleigh +shivering and miserable, <i>yet pitying him</i>.</p> + +<p>Oh, what a glorious sunset he saw that day on Kennedy's Plain, with +the snow dyed red and the poplar woods aglow in pink and gold! What a +glorious tramp through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> darkening woods as the shadows fell and +the yellow moon came up!</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 187px;"> +<img src="images/ill035.png" width="187" height="225" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"These are the best days of my life," he sang. "These are my golden +days!"</p> + +<p>And as he neared the great Spruce Hill, Yan yelled a long hurrah! "In +case they are still there," he told himself, but really for very joy +of feeling all alive.</p> + +<p>As he listened for the improbable response, he heard a faint howling +of wolves away over Kennedy's Plain. He mimicked their cry and quickly +got response, and noticed that they were gathering together, doubtless +hunting something, for now it was their hunting-cry. Nearer and nearer +it came, and his howls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> brought ready answers from the gloomy echoing +woods, when suddenly it flashed upon him: "It's <i>my</i> trail you are on. +<i>You are hunting me.</i>"</p> + +<div class="figcenter leftclear rightclear" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ill037" id="ill037"></a> +<img src="images/ill037.jpg" width="500" height="331" alt=""Sat down in the Moonlit Snow."" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption">"Sat down in the Moonlit Snow."</p> + +<p>The road now led across a little open plain. It would have been +madness to climb a tree in such a fearful frost, so he went out to the +middle of the open place and sat down in the moonlit snow—a +glittering rifle in his hands, a row of shining brass pegs in his +belt, and a strange, new feeling in his heart. On came the chorus, a +deep, melodious howling, on to the very edge of the woods, and there +the note changed. Then there was silence. They must have seen him +sitting there, for the light was like day, but they went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> around in +the edge of the woods. A stick snapped to the right and a low '<i>Woof</i>' +came from the left. Then all was still. Yan felt them sneaking around, +felt them watching him from the cover, and strained his eyes in vain +to see some form that he might shoot. But they were wise, and he was +wise, for had he run he would soon have seen them closing in on him. +They must have been but few, for after their council of war they +decided he was better let alone, and he never saw them at all. For +twenty minutes he waited, but hearing no more of them, arose and went +homeward. And as he tramped he thought, "Now I know how a deer feels +when the grind of a moc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>casined foot or the click of a lock is heard +in the trail behind him."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 214px;"> +<img src="images/ill039.png" width="214" height="250" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 165px;"> +<img src="images/ill040.png" width="165" height="175" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>In the days that followed he learned those Sandhills well, for many a +frosty day and bitter night he spent in them. He learned to follow +fast the faintest trail of deer. He learned just why that trail went +never past a tamarack-tree, and why it pawed the snow at every oak, +and why the buck's is plainest and the fawn's down wind. He learned +just what the club-rush has to say, when its tussocks break the snow. +He came to know how the musk-rat lives beneath the ice, and why the +mink slides down a hill, and what the ice says when it screams at +night. The squirrels taught him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> how best a fir-cone can be stripped +and which of toadstools one might eat. The partridge, why it dives +beneath the snow, and the fox, just why he sets his feet so straight, +and why he wears so huge a tail.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/ill041.png" width="200" height="197" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>He learned the ponds, the woods, the hills, and a hundred secrets of +the trail, but—<i>he got no deer</i>.</p> + +<p>And though many a score of crooked frosty miles he coursed, and +sometimes had a track to lead and sometimes none, he still went on, +like Galahad when the Grail was just before him. For more than once, +the guide that led was the trail of the Sandhill Stag.</p> + +<p class="newchapter"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + + +<div class="figright" style="width: 232px;"> +<img src="images/ill042b.png" width="232" height="400" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="drop"> +<img src="images/ill042a.png" alt="T" width="79" height="80" class="cap" /> +<p class="cap_3">The hunt was nearly over, for the season's end was nigh. The +moose-birds had picked the last of the saskatoons, all the +spruce-cones were scaled, and the hunger-moon was at hand. But a +hopeful chickadee sang '<i>See soon</i>' as Yan set off one frosty day for +the great Spruce Woods. On the road he overtook a woodcutter, who told +him that at such a place he had seen two deer last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> night, a doe and a +monstrous stag with "a rocking-chair on his head."</p> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/ill043.png" width="400" height="216" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Straight to the very place went Yan, and found the tracks—one like +those he had seen in the mud long ago, another a large unmistakable +print, the mark of the Sandhill Stag.</p> + +<p>How the wild beast in his heart did ramp—he wanted to howl like a +wolf on a hot scent; and away they went through woods and hills, the +trail and Yan and the inner wolf.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 125px;"> +<img src="images/ill044.png" width="125" height="120" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>All day he followed and, grown crafty himself, remarked each sign, and +rejoiced to find that nowhere had the deer been bounding. And when the +sun was low the sign was warm, so laying aside unneeded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> things, Yan +crawled along like a snake on the track of a hare. All day the animals +had zigzagged as they fed; their drink was snow, and now at length +away across a lawn in a bank of brush Yan spied a <i>something</i> flash. A +bird perhaps; he lay still and watched. Then gray among the gray +brush, he made out a great log, and from one end of it rose two +gnarled oaken boughs. Again the flash—the move of a restless ear, +then the oak boughs moved and Yan trembled, for he knew that the log +in the brush was the form of the Sandhill Stag. So grand, so charged +with <i>life</i>. He seemed a precious, sacred thing—a king, fur-robed and +duly crowned. To think of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> shooting now as he lay unconscious, +resting, seemed an awful crime. But Yan for weeks and months had pined +for this. His chance had come, and shoot he must. The long, long +strain grew tighter yet—grew taut—broke down, as up the rifle went. +But the wretched thing kept wabbling and pointing all about the little +glade. His breath came hot and fast and choking—so much, so very +much, so clearly all, hung on a single touch. He laid the rifle down, +revulsed—and trembled in the snow. But he soon regained the mastery, +his hand was steady now, the sights in line—'twas but a deer out +yonder. But at that moment the Stag turned full Yan's way, with those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +regardful eyes and ears, and nostrils too, and gazed.</p> + +<p>"Darest thou slay me?" said an uncrowned, unarmed king once, as his +eyes fell on the assassin's knife, and in that clear, calm gaze the +murderer quailed and cowed.</p> + +<p>So trembled Yan; but he knew it was only stag-fever, and he despised +it then as he came in time to honor it; and the beast that dwelt +within him fired the gun.</p> + +<p>The ball splashed short. The buck sprang up and the doe appeared. +Another shot; then, as they fled, another and another. But away the +deer went, lightly drifting across the low round hills.</p> + +<p class="newchapter"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + + +<div class="figright" style="width: 108px;"> +<img src="images/ill047b.png" width="108" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="drop"> +<img src="images/ill047a.png" alt="H" width="74" height="80" class="cap" /> +<p class="cap_2">He followed their trail for some time, but gnashed his teeth to find +no sign of blood, and he burned with a raging animal sense that was +neither love nor hate. Within a mile there was a new sign that joined +on and filled him with another rage and shed light on many a bloody +page of frontier history—a moccasin-track, a straight-set, +broad-toed, moosehide track, the track of a Cree brave. He followed in +savage humor, and as he careered up a slope<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> a tall form rose from a +log, raising one hand in peaceable gesture. Although Yan was behind, +the Indian had seen him first.</p> +</div> + +<p>"Who are you?" said Yan, roughly.</p> + +<p>"Chaska."</p> + +<p>"What are you doing in my country?"</p> + +<p>"It was my country first," he replied gravely.</p> + +<p>"Those are my deer," Yan said, and thought.</p> + +<p>"No man owns wild deer till he kills them," said Chaska.</p> + +<p>"You better keep off any trail I'm following."</p> + +<p>"Not afraid," said he, and made a gesture to include the whole +set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>tlement, then added gently, "No good to fight; the best man will +get the most deer anyhow."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 234px;"> +<img src="images/ill049.png" width="234" height="250" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>And the end of it was that Yan stayed for several days with Chaska, +and got, not an antlered buck indeed, but, better far, an insight into +the ways of a man who could hunt. The Indian taught him <i>not</i> to +follow the trail over the hills, for deer watch their back track, and +cross the hills to make this more easy. He taught him to tell by touch +and smell of sign just how far ahead they are, as well as the size and +condition of the deer, and not to trail closely when the game is near. +He taught him to study the wind by raising his moistened finger in the +air, and Yan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> thought, "Now I know why a deer's nose is always moist, +for he must always watch the wind." He showed Yan how much may be +gained at times by patient waiting, and that it is better to tread +like an Indian with foot set straight, for thereby one gains an inch +or two at each stride and can come back in one's own track through +deep snow. And he also unwittingly taught him that an Indian <i>cannot</i> +shoot with a rifle, and Natty Bumpo's adage came to mind, "A white man +can shoot with a gun, but it ain't accordin' to an Injun's gifts."</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 127px;"> +<img src="images/ill050.png" width="127" height="250" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Sometimes they went out together and sometimes singly. One day, while +out alone, Yan had followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> a deer-track into a thicket by what is +now called Chaska Lake. The sign was fresh, and as he sneaked around +there was a rustle in the brush. Then he saw the kinnikinnick boughs +shaking. His gun flew up and covered the spot. As soon as he was sure +of the place he meant to fire. But when he saw the creature as a dusky +moving form through the twigs, he awaited a better view, which came, +and he had almost pulled the trigger when his hand was stayed by a +glimpse of red, and a moment later out stepped—Chaska.</p> + +<p>"Chaska," Yan gasped, "I nearly did for you."</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 159px;"> +<img src="images/ill052.png" width="159" height="200" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>For reply the Indian drew his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> finger across the red handkerchief on +his brow. Yan knew then one reason why a hunting Indian always wears +it; after that he wore one himself.</p> + +<p>One day a flock of prairie-chickens flew high overhead toward the +thick Spruce Woods. Others followed, and it seemed to be a general +move. Chaska looked toward them and said, "Chickens go hide in bush. +Blizzard to-night."</p> + +<p>It surely came, and the hunters stayed all day by the fire. Next day +it was as fierce as ever. On the third day it ceased somewhat, and +they hunted again. But Chaska returned with his gun broken by a fall, +and after a long silent smoke he said:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>"Yan hunt in Moose Mountain?"</p> + +<p>"No!"</p> + +<p>"Good hunting. Go?"</p> + +<p>Yan shook his head.</p> + +<p>Presently the Indian, glancing to the eastward, said, "Sioux tracks +there to-day. All bad medicine here." And Yan knew that his mind was +made up. He went away and they never met again, and all that is left +of him now is his name, borne by the lonely lake that lies in the +Carberry Hills.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/ill053.png" width="500" height="187" alt="" title="Lake Chaska" /> +</div> + +<p class="newchapter rightclear"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + + +<div class="figright" style="width: 223px;"> +<img src="images/ill054b.png" width="223" height="125" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="drop"> +<img src="images/ill054a.png" alt="T" width="88" height="80" class="cap" /> +<p class="cap_4">"There are more deer round Carberry now than ever before, and the Big +Stag has been seen between Kennedy's Plain and the mill." So said a +note that reached Yan away in the East, where he had been chafing in a +new and distasteful life. It was the beginning of the hunting season, +the fret was already in his blood, and that letter decided him. For a +while the iron horse, for a while the gentle horse, then he donned his +moosehide<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> wings and flew as of old on many a long, hard flight, to +return as so often before.</p> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 237px;"> +<img src="images/ill057.png" width="237" height="250" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Then he heard that at a certain lake far to the eastward seven deer +had been seen; their leader a wonderful buck.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ill056" id="ill056"></a> +<img src="images/ill056.jpg" width="500" height="340" alt=""Seven Deer, ... their Leader a wonderful Buck."" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption">"Seven Deer, ... their Leader a wonderful Buck."</p> + +<p>With three others he set out in a sleigh to the eastward lake, and +soon found the tracks—six of various sizes and one large one, +undoubtedly that of the famous Stag.</p> + +<p>How utterly the veneer was torn to tatters by those seven chains of +tracks! How completely the wild paleolithic beast stood revealed in +each of the men, in spite of semi-modern garb, as they drove away on +the trail with a wild, excited gleam in every eye!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>It was nearly night before the trail warmed up, but even then, in +spite of Yan's earnest protest, they drove on in the sleigh. And soon +they came to where the trail told of seven keen observers looking +backward from a hill, then an even sevenfold chain of twenty-five-foot +bounds. The hunters got no glimpse at all, but followed till the night +came down, then hastily camped in the snow.</p> + +<p>In the morning they followed as before, and soon came to where seven +spots of black, bare ground showed where the deer had slept.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/ill059.png" width="200" height="369" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Now when the trail grew warm Yan insisted on hunting on foot. He +trailed the deer into a great thicket,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> and knew just where they were +by a grouse that flew cackling from its farther side.</p> + +<p>He arranged a plan, but his friends would not await the blue-jay's +'all-right' note, and the deer escaped. But finding themselves hard +pressed, they split their band, two going one way and five another. +Yan kept with him one, Duff, and leaving the others to follow the five +deer, he took up the twofold trail. Why? Because in it was the great +broad track he had followed for two years back.</p> + +<p>On they went, overtaking the deer and causing them again to split. Yan +sent Duff after the doe, while he stuck relentlessly to the track of +the famous Stag. As the sun got low,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> the chase led to a great +half-wooded stretch, in a country new to him; for he had driven the +Stag far from his ancient range. The trail again grew hot, but just as +Yan felt sure he soon would close, two distant shots were heard, and +the track of the Stag as he found it then went off in a fear-winged +flight that might keep on for miles.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 224px;"> +<img src="images/ill061.png" width="224" height="300" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 275px;"> +<img src="images/ill062.png" width="275" height="169" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Yan went at a run, and soon found Duff. He had had two long shots at +the doe. The second he thought had hit her. Within half a mile they +found blood on the trail; within another half-mile the blood was no +more seen and the track seemed to have grown very large and strong. +The snow was drifting and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> marks not easily read, yet Yan knew +very soon that the track they were on was not that of the wounded doe, +but was surely that of her antlered mate. Back on the trail they ran +till they solved the doubt, for there they learned that the Stag, +after making his own escape, had come back to change off: an old, old +trick of the hunted whereby one deer will cleverly join on and carry +on the line of tracks to save another that is too hard pressed, while +it leaps aside to hide or fly in a different direction. Thus the Stag +had sought to save his wounded mate, but the hunters remorselessly +took up her trail and gloated like wolves over the slight drip of +blood. Within another short<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> run they found that the Stag, having +failed to divert the chase to himself, had returned to her, and at +sundown they sighted them a quarter of a mile ahead mounting a long +snow-slope. The doe was walking slowly, with hanging head and ears. +The buck was running about as though in trouble that he did not +understand, and coming back to caress the doe and wonder why she +walked so slowly. In another half-mile the hunters came up with them. +She was down in the snow. When he saw them coming, the great Stag +shook the oak-tree on his brow and circled about in doubt, then fled +from a foe he was powerless to resist.</p> + +<div class="figcenter leftclear rightclear" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ill063" id="ill063"></a> +<img src="images/ill063.jpg" width="500" height="304" alt=""The Doe was walking slowly."" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption">"The Doe was walking slowly."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 225px;"> +<img src="images/ill065.png" width="225" height="90" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="rightclear"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>As the men came near the doe made a convulsive effort to rise, but +could not. Duff drew his knife. It never before occurred to Yan why he +and each of them carried a long knife. The poor doe turned on her foes +her great lustrous eyes; they were brimming with tears, but she made +no moan. Yan turned his back on the scene and covered his face with +his hands, but Duff went forward with the knife and did some dreadful, +unspeakable thing, Yan scarcely knew what, and when Duff called him he +slowly turned, and the big Stag's mate was lying quiet in the snow, +and the only living thing that they saw as they quit the scene was the +great round form bearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> aloft the oak-tree on its brow as it haunted +the nearer hills.</p> + +<p>And when, an hour later, the men came with the sleigh to lift the +doe's body from the crimsoned snow, there were large fresh tracks +about it, and a dark shadow passed over the whitened hill into the +silent night.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>What morbid thoughts came from the fire that night! How the man in Yan +did taunt the glutted brute! Was this the end? Was this the real +chase? After long weeks, with the ideal alone in mind, after countless +blessed failures, was this the vile success—a beautiful, glorious, +living creature tortured into a loathsome mass of carrion?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 107px;"> +<img src="images/ill066.png" width="107" height="200" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="newchapter"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + + +<div class="drop"> +<img src="images/ill067.png" alt="B" width="76" height="80" class="cap" /> +<p class="cap_2">But when the morning came the impress of the night was dim. A long +howl came over the hill, and the thought that a wolf was on the trail +that he was quitting smote sadly on Yan's heart. They all set out for +the settlement, but within an hour Yan only wanted an excuse to stay. +And when at length they ran onto the fresh track of the Sandhill Stag +himself, the lad was all ablaze once more.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>"I cannot go back—something tells me that I must stay—I must see him +face to face again."</p> + +<p>The rest had had enough of the bitter frost, so Yan took from the +sleigh a small pot, a blanket, and some food, and left them, to follow +alone the great sharp imprint in the snow.</p> + +<p>"Good-by—good luck!"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/ill068.png" width="500" height="201" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>He watched the sleigh out of sight, in the low hills, and then felt as +he never had before. Though he had been so many months alone in the +wilds, he had never known loneliness, but as soon as his friends were +gone he was overwhelmed by a sense of the utter heart-sickening +dreariness of the endless, snowy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> waste. Where were the charms that he +had never failed to find until now? He wanted to recall the sleigh, +but pride kept him silent.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/ill069.png" width="250" height="190" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>In a little while it was too late, and soon he was once more in the +power of that fascinating, endless chain of tracks,—a chain begun +years ago, when in a June the track of a mother Blacktail was suddenly +joined by two little ones' tracks. Since then the three had gone on +winding over the land the trail-chains they were forging,—knotted and +kinked, and twisted with every move and thought of the makers, +imprinted with every hap of their lives, but interrupted never wholly. +At times the tracks were joined by that of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> some fierce foe and the +kind of mark was changed, but the chains went on for months and years, +now fast, now slow, but endless, until some foe more strong joined on +and there one trail was ended. But this great Stag was forging still +that mystic chain. A million roods of hills had he overlaid with its +links, had scribbled over in this oldest script with the story of his +life. If only our eyes were bright enough to follow up that twenty +thousand miles of trail, what light unguessed we might obtain where +the wisest now are groping!</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/ill070.png" width="500" height="387" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>But skin deep, man is brute. Just a little while ago we were mere +hunting brutes—our bellies were our only thought, that telltale line +of dots<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> was the road to food. No man can follow it far without +feeling a wild beast prickling in his hair and down his spine. Away +Yan went, a hunter-brute once more, all other feelings swamped.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/ill071.png" width="200" height="257" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Late that day the trail, after many a kink and seeming break, led into +a great dense thicket of brittle, quaking asp. Yan knew that the Stag +was there to lie at rest. The deer went in up-wind, of course. His +eyes and ears would watch his trail, and his nose would guard in +front, so Yan went in at one side, trusting to get a shot. With a very +agony of care he made his way, step by step, and, after many minutes, +surely found the track, still leading on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> Another lengthy crawl, with +nerves at tense, and then the lad thought he heard a twig snapped +behind him, though the track was still ahead. And after long he found +it true. Before lying down the Stag had doubled back, and while Yan +had thought him still ahead, he was lying far behind, so had gotten +wind of the man and now was miles away.</p> + +<p>Once more into the unknown north away, till cold, black night came +down; then Yan sought out a sheltered spot and made a tiny, red-man's +fire. As Chaska had taught him long ago—'Big fire for fool.'</p> + +<p>When the lad curled up to sleep he felt a vague wish to turn three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +times like a dog, and a well-defined wish that he had fur on his face +and a bushy tail to lay around his freezing hands and feet, for it was +a night of northern frost. Old Peboan was stalking on the snow. The +stars seemed to crackle, so one could almost hear. The trees and earth +were bursting with the awful frost. The ice on a near lake was rent +all night by cracks that went whooping from shore to shore; and down +between the hills there poured the cold that burns.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/ill073.png" width="200" height="354" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 102px;"> +<img src="images/ill074.png" width="102" height="175" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>A prairie-wolf came by in the night, but he did not howl or treat Yan +like an outsider now. He gave a gentle, doglike '<i>Woof, woof</i>,' a sort +of 'Oho! so you have come to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> it at last,' and passed away. Toward +morning the weather grew milder, but with the change there came a +driving snow. The track was blotted out. Yan had heeded nothing else, +and did not know where he was. After travelling an aimless mile or two +he decided to make for Pine Creek, which ought to lie southeastward. +But which way was southeast? The powdery snow was driven along through +the air, blinding, stinging, burning. On all things near it was like +smoke, and on farther things, a driving fog. But he made for a quaking +asp grove, and there, sticking through the snow, he found a crosier +golden-rod, dead and dry, but still faithfully delivering its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +message, 'Yon is the north.' With course corrected, on he went, and, +whenever in doubt, dug out this compass-flower, till the country +dipped and Pine Creek lay below.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 102px;"> +<img src="images/ill075.png" width="102" height="200" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>There was good camping here, the very spot indeed where, fifteen years +before, Butler had camped on his Loneland Journey; but now the +blizzard had ceased, so Yan spent the day hunting without seeing a +track, and he spent the night as before, wishing that nature had been +kinder to him in the matter of fur. During that first lone night his +face and toes had been frozen and now bore burning sores. But still he +kept on the chase, for something within had told him that the Grail<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +was surely near. Next day a strange, unreasoning guess sent him east +across the creek in a deerless-looking barren land. Within half a mile +he came on dim tracks made lately in the storm. He followed, and soon +found where six deer had lain at rest, and among them a great, broad +bed and a giant track that only one could have made. The track was +almost fresh, the sign unfrozen still. "Within a mile," he thought. +But within a hundred yards there loomed up on a fog-wrapped hillside +five heads with ears regardant, and at that moment, too, there rose up +from the snowy top a great form like a blasted trunk with two dead +boughs still on. But they had seen him first, and be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>fore the deadly +gun could play, six beacons waved and a friendly hill had screened +them from its power.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill076.png" width="450" height="156" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="leftclear">The Sandhill Stag had gathered his brood again, yet now that the +murderer was on the track once more, he scattered them as before. But +there was only one track for Yan.</p> + +<p>At last the chase led away to the great dip of Pine Creek—a mile-wide +flat, with a long, dense thicket down the middle.</p> + +<p>"There is where he is hiding and watching now, but there he will not +rest," said the something within, and Yan kept out of sight and +watched; after half an hour a dark spot left the willow belt and +wandered up the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> farther hill. When he was well out of sight over the +hill Yan ran across the valley and stalked around to get the trail on +the down-wind side. He found it, and there learned that the Stag was +as wise as he—he had climbed a good lookout and watched his back +trail, then seeing Yan crossing the flat, his track went swiftly +bounding, bounding—.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 362px;"><a name="ill080" id="ill080"></a> +<img src="images/ill080.jpg" width="362" height="500" alt=""Scanned the White World for his Foe."" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption">"Scanned the White World for his Foe."</p> + +<p>The Stag knew just how things stood; a single match to a finish now, +and he led away for a new region. But Yan was learning something he +had often heard—that the swiftest deer can be run down by a hardy +man; for he was as fresh as ever, but the great Stag's bounds were +shortening, he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> surely tiring out, he must throw off the hunter +now, or he is lost.</p> + +<p>He often mounted a high hill to scan the white world for his foe, and +the after-trail was a record of what he learned or feared. At last his +trail came to a sudden end. This was a mystery until long study showed +how he had returned backward on his own track for a hundred yards, +then bounded aside to fly in another direction. Three times he did +this, and then passed through an aspen thicket and, returning, lay +down in this thicket near his own track, so that in following, Yan +must pass where the Stag could smell and hear him long before the +trail brought the hunter over-close.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>All these doublings and many more like them were patiently unravelled +and the shortening bounds were straightened out once more till, as +daylight waned, the tracks seemed to grow stale and the bounds again +grow long. After a little, Yan became wholly puzzled, so he stopped +right there and spent another wretched night. Next day at dawn he +worked it out.</p> + +<p>He found he had been running the trail he had already run. With a long +hark-back, the doubt was cleared. The desperate Stag had joined onto +his old track and bounded aside at length to let the hunter follow the +cold scent. But the join-on was found and the real trail read,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> and +the tale that it told was of a great Stag wearing out, too tired to +eat, too scared to sleep, with a tireless hunter after.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 275px;"> +<img src="images/ill083.png" width="275" height="129" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="newchapter"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + + +<div class="figright" style="width: 139px;"> +<img src="images/ill085a.png" width="139" height="200" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="drop"> +<img src="images/ill084.png" alt="A" width="88" height="80" class="cap" /> +<p class="cap_2">A last long follow brought the hunt back to familiar ground—a +marsh-encompassed tract of woods with three ways in. There was the +deer's trail entering. Yan felt he would not come out there, for he +knew his foe was following. So swiftly and silently the hunter made +for the second road on the down-wind side, and having hung his coat +and sash there on a swaying sapling, he hastened to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> the third way +out, and hid. After a while, seeing nothing, Yan gave the low call +that the jaybird gives when there's danger abroad in the woods.</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 145px;"> +<img src="images/ill085b.png" width="145" height="275" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>All deer take guidance from the jay, and away off in the encompassed +woods Yan saw the great Stag with wavering ears go up a high lookout. +A low whistle turned him to a statue, but he was far away with many a +twig between. For some seconds he stood sniffing the wind and gazing +with his back to his foe, watching the back trail, where so long his +enemy had been, but never dreaming of that enemy in ambush ahead. Then +the breeze set the coat on the sapling a-flutter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>ing. The Stag quickly +quit the hillock, not leaping or crashing through the brush,—he had +years ago got past that,—but silent and weasel-like threading the +maze, he disappeared. Yan crouched in the willow thicket and strained +his every sense and tried to train his ears for keener watching. A +twig ticked in the copse that he was in. Yan slowly rose with nerve +and sense at tightest tense, the gun in line—and as he rose, there +also rose, but fifteen feet away, a wondrous pair of bronze and ivory +horns, a royal head, a noble form behind it, and face to face they +stood, Yan and the Sandhill Stag. At last—at last, his life was in +Yan's hands. The Stag flinched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> not, but stood and gazed with those +great ears and mournful, truthful eyes, and the rifle leaped but sank +again, for the Stag stood still and calmly looked him in the eyes, and +Yan felt the prickling fading from his scalp, his clenched teeth +eased, his limbs, bent as to spring, relaxed and manlike stood erect.</p> + +<p>'<i>Shoot, shoot, shoot now! This is what you have toiled for</i>,' said a +faint and fading voice, and spoke no more.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/ill087.png" width="400" height="315" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>But Yan remembered the night when he, himself run down, had turned to +face the hunting wolves, he remembered too that night when the snow +was red with crime, and now between him and the other there he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> dimly +saw a vision of an agonizing, dying doe, with great, sad eyes, that +only asked, 'What harm have I done you?' A change came over him, and +every thought of murder went from Yan as they gazed into each other's +eyes—and hearts. Yan could not look him in the eyes and take his +life, and different thoughts and a wholly different concept of the +Stag, coming—coming—long coming—had come.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="drop"> +<img src="images/ill088.png" alt="O" width="97" height="75" class="cap" /> +<p class="cap_5">"Oh, beautiful creature! One of our wise men has said, the body is the +soul made visible; is your spirit then so beautiful—as beautiful as +wise? We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> have long stood as foes, hunter and hunted, but now that +is changed and we stand face to face, fellow-creatures looking in each +other's eyes, not knowing each other's speech—but knowing motives and +feelings. Now I understand you as I never did before; surely you at +least in part understand me. For your life is at last in my power, yet +you have no fear. I knew of a deer once, that, run down by the hounds, +sought safety with the hunter, and he saved it—and you also I have +run down and you boldly seek safety with me. Yes! you are as wise as +you are beautiful, for I will never harm a hair of you. We are +brothers, oh, bounding Blacktail! only I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> the elder and stronger, +and if only my strength could always be at hand to save you, you would +never come to harm. Go now, without fear, to range the piney hills; +never more shall I follow your trail with the wild wolf rampant in my +heart. Less and less as I grow do I see in your race mere flying +marks, or butcher-meat. We have grown, Little Brother, and learned +many things that you know not, but you have many a precious sense that +is wholly hidden from us. Go now without fear of me.</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="ill089" id="ill089"></a> +<img src="images/ill089.jpg" width="500" height="415" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"I may never see you again. But if only you would come sometimes and +look me in the eyes and make me feel as you have done to-day, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +would drive the wild beast wholly from my heart, and then the veil +would be a little drawn and I should know more of the things that wise +men have prayed for knowledge of. And yet I feel it never will be—I +have found the Grail. I have learned what Buddha learned. I shall +never see you again. Farewell."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/ill093.png" width="500" height="274" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trail of the Sandhill Stag, by +Ernest Seton-Thompson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF THE SANDHILL STAG *** + +***** This file should be named 32319-h.htm or 32319-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/1/32319/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Steven desJardins +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Trail of the Sandhill Stag + +Author: Ernest Seton-Thompson + +Release Date: May 10, 2010 [EBook #32319] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF THE SANDHILL STAG *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Steven desJardins +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Illustration: The Trail of the Sandhill Stag] + + + + +[Illustration: "The Track of a Mother Blacktail was suddenly joined by +two Little Ones' Tracks."] + + + + +THE TRAIL OF THE SANDHILL STAG +AND 60 DRAWINGS + +[Illustration] + +BY +ERNEST THOMPSON SETON +[Illustration] +Naturalist to the Government of Manitoba + +Author of +Wild Animals I Have Known +Art Anatomy of Animals +Mammals of Manitoba +Birds of Manitoba + +Published by Charles Scribner's Sons New York City A.D. 1914 + +[Illustration] + +Copyright, 1899, by +Ernest Seton-Thompson + + +First +Impression +October +12 +1899 + +Second +Impression +February +16 +1900 + +Third +Impression +December +20 +1900 + +Fourth +Impression +July +16 +1901 + +Fifth +Impression +August +18 +1902 + +Sixth +Impression +October +29 +1904 + +Seventh +Impression +November +30 +1908 + +Eighth +Impression +November +1 +1910 + +Ninth +Impression +April +10 +1913 + +Tenth +Impression +December +10 +1913 + +THE SCRIBNER PRESS + + + + +This Book is dedicated to the Old-timers of the Big Plain of Manitoba. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + To the Reader: + + These are the best days of my life. + These are my golden days. + + + + + In this Book the designs for title-page, cover, and + general make-up, and also the literary revision, were + done by Mrs. Grace Gallatin Thompson Seton. + +[Illustration] + + + + +List of full-page Drawings + +[Illustration] + +"The Track of a Mother Blacktail +was suddenly joined by two Little +Ones' Tracks" frontispiece + +The Trail Spring page 14 + +"Wingless Birds" 22 + +"Sat down in the Moonlit Snow" 37 + +"Seven Deer, ... their Leader a wonderful +Buck" 56 + +"The Doe was walking slowly" 63 + +"Scanned the White World for his foe" 80 + +The Stag 89 + + + + +[Illustration: The Trail Spring.] + + + + +I + + +It was a burning hot day. Yan was wandering in pursuit of birds among +the endless groves and glades of the Sandhill wilderness about +Carberry. The water in the numerous marshy ponds was warm with the sun +heat, so Yan cut across to the trail spring, the only place in the +country where he might find a cooling drink. As he stooped beside it +his eye fell on a small hoof-mark in the mud, a sharp and elegant +track. + +[Illustration] + +He had never seen one like it before, but it gave him a thrill, for he +knew at once it was the track of a _wild deer_. + +"There are no deer in those hills now," the settlers told Yan. Yet +when the first snow came that autumn he, remembering the hoof-mark in +the mud, quietly took down his rifle and said to himself, "I am going +into the hills every day till I bring out a deer." Yan was a tall, raw +lad in the last of his teens. He was no hunter yet, but he was a +tireless runner, and filled with unflagging zeal. Away to the hills he +went on his quest day after day, and many a score of long white miles +he coursed, and night after night he returned to the shanty without +seeing even a track. But the longest chase will end. On a far, hard +trip in the southern hills he came at last on the trail of a deer--dim +and stale, but still a deer-trail--and again he felt a thrill as the +thought came, "At the other end of that line of dimples in the snow is +the creature that made them; each one is fresher than the last, and it +is only a question of time for me to come up with their maker." + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +At first Yan could not tell by the dim track which way the animal had +gone. But he soon found that the mark was a little sharper at one end, +and rightly guessed that that was the toe; also he noticed that the +spaces shortened in going up hill, and at last a clear imprint in a +sandy place ended all doubt. Away he went with a new fire in his +blood, and an odd prickling in his hair; away on a long, hard follow +through interminable woods and hills, with the trail growing fresher +as he flew. All day he followed, and toward night it turned and led +him homeward. On it went, soon over familiar ground, back to the +sawmill, then over Mitchell's Plain, and at last into the thick poplar +woods near by, where Yan left it when it was too dark to follow. He +was only seven miles from home, and this he easily trotted in an hour. + +[Illustration] + +In the morning he was back to take it up, but instead of an old +track, there were now so many fresh ones, crossing and winding, that +he could not follow at all. So he prowled along haphazard, until he +found two tracks so new that he could easily trail them as before, and +he eagerly gave chase. As he sneaked along watching the tracks at his +feet instead of the woods ahead, he was startled by two big-eared, +grayish animals springing from a little glade into which he had +stumbled. They trotted to a bank fifty yards away and then turned to +gaze at him. + +[Illustration] + +How they did seem to _look_ with their great ears! How they spellbound +him by the soft gaze that he felt rather than saw! He knew what they +were. Had he not for weeks been holding ready, preparing and hungering +for this very sight! And yet how useless were his preparations; how +wholly all his preconcepts were swept away, and a wonder-stricken + +"Oh-h-h!" went softly from his throat. + +As he stood and gazed, they turned their heads away, though they still +seemed to look at him with their great ears, and trotting a few steps +to a smoother place, began to bound up and down in a sort of play. +They seemed to have forgotten him, and it was bewildering to see the +wonderful effortless way in which, by a tiny toe-touch, they would +rise six or eight feet in air. Yan stood fascinated by the strange +play of the light-limbed, gray-furred creatures. There was no haste or +alarm in their movements; he would watch them until they began to run +away--till they should take fright and begin the labored straining, +the vast athletic bounds, he had heard of. And it was only on noting +that they were rapidly fading into the distance that he realized that +_now_ they were running away, _already_ were flying for safety. + +[Illustration: "Wingless Birds."] + +Higher and higher they rose each time; gracefully their bodies swayed +inward as they curved along some bold ridge, or for a long space the +buff-white scutcheons that they bore behind them seemed hanging in +the air while these wingless birds were really sailing over some deep +gully. + +Yan stood intensely gazing until they were out of sight, and it never +once occurred to him to shoot. + +When they were gone he went to the place where they had begun their +play. Here was one track; where was the next? He looked all around and +was surprised to see a blank for fifteen feet; and then another blank, +and on farther, another: then the blanks increased to eighteen feet, +then to twenty, then to twenty-five and sometimes thirty feet. Each of +these playful, effortless bounds covered a space of eighteen to thirty +feet. + +Gods above! They do not run at all, they fly; and once in a while come +down again to tap the hill-tops with their dainty hoofs. + + * * * * * + +"I'm glad they got away," said Yan. "They've shown me something to-day +that never man saw before. I know that no one else has ever seen it, +or he would have told of it." + +[Illustration] + + + + +II + + +Yet when the morning came the old wolfish instinct was back in his +heart. "I must away to the hills," he said, "take up the trail, and be +a beast of the chase once more; my wits against their wits; my +strength against their strength; and against their speed, my gun." + +[Illustration] + +Oh! those glorious hills--an endless rolling stretch of sandy dunes, +with lakes and woods and grassy lawns between. Life--life on every +side, and life within, for Yan was young and strong and joyed in +powers complete. "These are the best days of my life," he said, "these +are my golden days." He thought it then, and oh, how well he came to +know it in the after years! + +[Illustration] + +All day at a long wolf-lope he would go and send the white hare and +the partridge flying from his path, and swing along and scan the +ground for sign and the telltale inscript in the snow, the oldest of +all writing, more thrillful of interest by far than the finest glyph +or scarab that ever Egypt gave to modern day. + +But the driving snow was the wild deer's friend, as the driven snow +was his foe, and down it came that day and wiped out every trace. + +[Illustration] + +The next day and the next still found Yan careering in the hills, but +never a track or sign did he see. And the weeks went by, and many a +rolling mile he ran, and many a bitter day and freezing night he +passed in the snow-clad hills, sometimes on a deer-trail but more +often without; sometimes in the barren hills, and sometimes led by +woodmen's talk to far-off sheltering woods, and once or twice he saw +indeed the buff-white bannerets go floating up the hills. Sometimes +reports came of a great buck that frequented the timber-lands near the +sawmill, and more than once Yan found his trail, but never got a +glimpse of him; and the few deer there were now grew so wild with long +pursuit that he had no further chances to shoot, and the hunting +season passed in one long train of failures. + +[Illustration] + +Bright, unsad failures they. He seemed indeed to come back +empty-handed, but he really came home laden with the best spoils of +the chase, and he knew it more and more, as time went on, till every +day, at last, on the clear unending trail, was a glad triumphant +march. + + + + +III + + +[Illustration] + +The year went by. Another season came, and Yan felt in his heart the +hunter fret once more. Even had he not, the talk he heard would have +set him all afire. + +It told of a mighty buck that now lived in the hills--the Sandhill +Stag they called him. It told of his size, his speed, and the crowning +glory that he bore on his brow, a marvellous growth like sculptured +bronze with gleaming ivory points. + +[Illustration] + +So when the first tracking snow came, Yan set out with some comrades +who had caught a faint reflected glow of his ardor. They drove in a +sleigh to the Spruce Hill, then scattered to meet again at sunset. The +woods about abounded in hares and grouse, and the powder burned all +around. But no deer-track was to be found, so Yan quietly left the +woods and set off alone for Kennedy's Plain, where last this wonderful +buck had been seen. + +[Illustration] + +After a few miles he came on a great deer-track, so large and sharp +and broken by such mighty bounds that he knew it at once for the trail +of the Sandhill Stag. + +[Illustration] + +With a sudden rush of strength to his limbs he led away like a wolf on +the trail. And down his spine and in his hair he felt as before, and +yet as never before, the strange prickling that he knew was the same +as makes the wolf's mane bristle when he hunts. He followed till night +was near and he must needs turn, for the Spruce Hill was many miles +away. + +He knew that it would be long after sunset before he could get there, +and he scarcely expected that his comrades would wait for him, but he +did not care; he gloried in the independence of his strength, for his +legs were like iron and his wind was like a hound's. Ten miles were +no more to him than a mile to another man, for he could run all day +and come home fresh, and always when alone in the lone hills he felt +within so glad a gush of wild exhilaration that his joy was full. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +So when his friends, feeling sure that he could take care of himself, +drove home and left him, he was glad to be left. They seemed rather to +pity him for imposing on himself such long, toilsome tramps. They had +no realization of what he found in those wind-swept hills. They never +once thought what they and all their friends and every man that ever +lived has striven for and offered his body, his brain, his freedom, +and his life to buy; what they were vainly wearing out their lives in +fearful, hopeless drudgery to gain, that boy was daily finding in +those hills. The bitter, biting, blizzard wind was without, but the +fire of health and youth was within; and at every stride in his daily +march, it was _happiness_ he found, and he knew it. And he smiled such +a gentle smile when he thought of those driven home in the sleigh +shivering and miserable, _yet pitying him_. + +[Illustration] + +Oh, what a glorious sunset he saw that day on Kennedy's Plain, with +the snow dyed red and the poplar woods aglow in pink and gold! What a +glorious tramp through the darkening woods as the shadows fell and +the yellow moon came up! + +[Illustration] + +"These are the best days of my life," he sang. "These are my golden +days!" + +And as he neared the great Spruce Hill, Yan yelled a long hurrah! "In +case they are still there," he told himself, but really for very joy +of feeling all alive. + +As he listened for the improbable response, he heard a faint howling +of wolves away over Kennedy's Plain. He mimicked their cry and quickly +got response, and noticed that they were gathering together, doubtless +hunting something, for now it was their hunting-cry. Nearer and nearer +it came, and his howls brought ready answers from the gloomy echoing +woods, when suddenly it flashed upon him: "It's _my_ trail you are on. +_You are hunting me._" + +[Illustration: "Sat down in the Moonlit Snow."] + +The road now led across a little open plain. It would have been +madness to climb a tree in such a fearful frost, so he went out to the +middle of the open place and sat down in the moonlit snow--a +glittering rifle in his hands, a row of shining brass pegs in his +belt, and a strange, new feeling in his heart. On came the chorus, a +deep, melodious howling, on to the very edge of the woods, and there +the note changed. Then there was silence. They must have seen him +sitting there, for the light was like day, but they went around in +the edge of the woods. A stick snapped to the right and a low '_Woof_' +came from the left. Then all was still. Yan felt them sneaking around, +felt them watching him from the cover, and strained his eyes in vain +to see some form that he might shoot. But they were wise, and he was +wise, for had he run he would soon have seen them closing in on him. +They must have been but few, for after their council of war they +decided he was better let alone, and he never saw them at all. For +twenty minutes he waited, but hearing no more of them, arose and went +homeward. And as he tramped he thought, "Now I know how a deer feels +when the grind of a moccasined foot or the click of a lock is heard +in the trail behind him." + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +In the days that followed he learned those Sandhills well, for many a +frosty day and bitter night he spent in them. He learned to follow +fast the faintest trail of deer. He learned just why that trail went +never past a tamarack-tree, and why it pawed the snow at every oak, +and why the buck's is plainest and the fawn's down wind. He learned +just what the club-rush has to say, when its tussocks break the snow. +He came to know how the musk-rat lives beneath the ice, and why the +mink slides down a hill, and what the ice says when it screams at +night. The squirrels taught him how best a fir-cone can be stripped +and which of toadstools one might eat. The partridge, why it dives +beneath the snow, and the fox, just why he sets his feet so straight, +and why he wears so huge a tail. + +[Illustration] + +He learned the ponds, the woods, the hills, and a hundred secrets of +the trail, but--_he got no deer_. + +And though many a score of crooked frosty miles he coursed, and +sometimes had a track to lead and sometimes none, he still went on, +like Galahad when the Grail was just before him. For more than once, +the guide that led was the trail of the Sandhill Stag. + + + + +IV + + +[Illustration] + +The hunt was nearly over, for the season's end was nigh. The +moose-birds had picked the last of the saskatoons, all the +spruce-cones were scaled, and the hunger-moon was at hand. But a +hopeful chickadee sang '_See soon_' as Yan set off one frosty day for +the great Spruce Woods. On the road he overtook a woodcutter, who told +him that at such a place he had seen two deer last night, a doe and a +monstrous stag with "a rocking-chair on his head." + +[Illustration] + +Straight to the very place went Yan, and found the tracks--one like +those he had seen in the mud long ago, another a large unmistakable +print, the mark of the Sandhill Stag. + +How the wild beast in his heart did ramp--he wanted to howl like a +wolf on a hot scent; and away they went through woods and hills, the +trail and Yan and the inner wolf. + +[Illustration] + +All day he followed and, grown crafty himself, remarked each sign, and +rejoiced to find that nowhere had the deer been bounding. And when the +sun was low the sign was warm, so laying aside unneeded things, Yan +crawled along like a snake on the track of a hare. All day the animals +had zigzagged as they fed; their drink was snow, and now at length +away across a lawn in a bank of brush Yan spied a _something_ flash. A +bird perhaps; he lay still and watched. Then gray among the gray +brush, he made out a great log, and from one end of it rose two +gnarled oaken boughs. Again the flash--the move of a restless ear, +then the oak boughs moved and Yan trembled, for he knew that the log +in the brush was the form of the Sandhill Stag. So grand, so charged +with _life_. He seemed a precious, sacred thing--a king, fur-robed and +duly crowned. To think of shooting now as he lay unconscious, +resting, seemed an awful crime. But Yan for weeks and months had pined +for this. His chance had come, and shoot he must. The long, long +strain grew tighter yet--grew taut--broke down, as up the rifle went. +But the wretched thing kept wabbling and pointing all about the little +glade. His breath came hot and fast and choking--so much, so very +much, so clearly all, hung on a single touch. He laid the rifle down, +revulsed--and trembled in the snow. But he soon regained the mastery, +his hand was steady now, the sights in line--'twas but a deer out +yonder. But at that moment the Stag turned full Yan's way, with those +regardful eyes and ears, and nostrils too, and gazed. + +"Darest thou slay me?" said an uncrowned, unarmed king once, as his +eyes fell on the assassin's knife, and in that clear, calm gaze the +murderer quailed and cowed. + +So trembled Yan; but he knew it was only stag-fever, and he despised +it then as he came in time to honor it; and the beast that dwelt +within him fired the gun. + +The ball splashed short. The buck sprang up and the doe appeared. +Another shot; then, as they fled, another and another. But away the +deer went, lightly drifting across the low round hills. + + + + +V + + +[Illustration] + +He followed their trail for some time, but gnashed his teeth to find +no sign of blood, and he burned with a raging animal sense that was +neither love nor hate. Within a mile there was a new sign that joined +on and filled him with another rage and shed light on many a bloody +page of frontier history--a moccasin-track, a straight-set, +broad-toed, moosehide track, the track of a Cree brave. He followed in +savage humor, and as he careered up a slope a tall form rose from a +log, raising one hand in peaceable gesture. Although Yan was behind, +the Indian had seen him first. + +"Who are you?" said Yan, roughly. + +"Chaska." + +"What are you doing in my country?" + +"It was my country first," he replied gravely. + +"Those are my deer," Yan said, and thought. + +"No man owns wild deer till he kills them," said Chaska. + +"You better keep off any trail I'm following." + +"Not afraid," said he, and made a gesture to include the whole +settlement, then added gently, "No good to fight; the best man will +get the most deer anyhow." + +[Illustration] + +And the end of it was that Yan stayed for several days with Chaska, +and got, not an antlered buck indeed, but, better far, an insight into +the ways of a man who could hunt. The Indian taught him _not_ to +follow the trail over the hills, for deer watch their back track, and +cross the hills to make this more easy. He taught him to tell by touch +and smell of sign just how far ahead they are, as well as the size and +condition of the deer, and not to trail closely when the game is near. +He taught him to study the wind by raising his moistened finger in the +air, and Yan thought, "Now I know why a deer's nose is always moist, +for he must always watch the wind." He showed Yan how much may be +gained at times by patient waiting, and that it is better to tread +like an Indian with foot set straight, for thereby one gains an inch +or two at each stride and can come back in one's own track through +deep snow. And he also unwittingly taught him that an Indian _cannot_ +shoot with a rifle, and Natty Bumpo's adage came to mind, "A white man +can shoot with a gun, but it ain't accordin' to an Injun's gifts." + +[Illustration] + +Sometimes they went out together and sometimes singly. One day, while +out alone, Yan had followed a deer-track into a thicket by what is +now called Chaska Lake. The sign was fresh, and as he sneaked around +there was a rustle in the brush. Then he saw the kinnikinnick boughs +shaking. His gun flew up and covered the spot. As soon as he was sure +of the place he meant to fire. But when he saw the creature as a dusky +moving form through the twigs, he awaited a better view, which came, +and he had almost pulled the trigger when his hand was stayed by a +glimpse of red, and a moment later out stepped--Chaska. + +"Chaska," Yan gasped, "I nearly did for you." + +[Illustration] + +For reply the Indian drew his finger across the red handkerchief on +his brow. Yan knew then one reason why a hunting Indian always wears +it; after that he wore one himself. + +One day a flock of prairie-chickens flew high overhead toward the +thick Spruce Woods. Others followed, and it seemed to be a general +move. Chaska looked toward them and said, "Chickens go hide in bush. +Blizzard to-night." + +It surely came, and the hunters stayed all day by the fire. Next day +it was as fierce as ever. On the third day it ceased somewhat, and +they hunted again. But Chaska returned with his gun broken by a fall, +and after a long silent smoke he said: + +"Yan hunt in Moose Mountain?" + +"No!" + +"Good hunting. Go?" + +Yan shook his head. + +Presently the Indian, glancing to the eastward, said, "Sioux tracks +there to-day. All bad medicine here." And Yan knew that his mind was +made up. He went away and they never met again, and all that is left +of him now is his name, borne by the lonely lake that lies in the +Carberry Hills. + +[Illustration] + + + + +VI + + +[Illustration] + +"There are more deer round Carberry now than ever before, and the Big +Stag has been seen between Kennedy's Plain and the mill." So said a +note that reached Yan away in the East, where he had been chafing in a +new and distasteful life. It was the beginning of the hunting season, +the fret was already in his blood, and that letter decided him. For a +while the iron horse, for a while the gentle horse, then he donned his +moosehide wings and flew as of old on many a long, hard flight, to +return as so often before. + +[Illustration] + +Then he heard that at a certain lake far to the eastward seven deer +had been seen; their leader a wonderful buck. + +[Illustration: "Seven Deer, ... their Leader a wonderful Buck."] + +With three others he set out in a sleigh to the eastward lake, and +soon found the tracks--six of various sizes and one large one, +undoubtedly that of the famous Stag. + +How utterly the veneer was torn to tatters by those seven chains of +tracks! How completely the wild paleolithic beast stood revealed in +each of the men, in spite of semi-modern garb, as they drove away on +the trail with a wild, excited gleam in every eye! + +It was nearly night before the trail warmed up, but even then, in +spite of Yan's earnest protest, they drove on in the sleigh. And soon +they came to where the trail told of seven keen observers looking +backward from a hill, then an even sevenfold chain of twenty-five-foot +bounds. The hunters got no glimpse at all, but followed till the night +came down, then hastily camped in the snow. + +In the morning they followed as before, and soon came to where seven +spots of black, bare ground showed where the deer had slept. + +[Illustration] + +Now when the trail grew warm Yan insisted on hunting on foot. He +trailed the deer into a great thicket, and knew just where they were +by a grouse that flew cackling from its farther side. + +He arranged a plan, but his friends would not await the blue-jay's +'all-right' note, and the deer escaped. But finding themselves hard +pressed, they split their band, two going one way and five another. +Yan kept with him one, Duff, and leaving the others to follow the five +deer, he took up the twofold trail. Why? Because in it was the great +broad track he had followed for two years back. + +On they went, overtaking the deer and causing them again to split. Yan +sent Duff after the doe, while he stuck relentlessly to the track of +the famous Stag. As the sun got low, the chase led to a great +half-wooded stretch, in a country new to him; for he had driven the +Stag far from his ancient range. The trail again grew hot, but just as +Yan felt sure he soon would close, two distant shots were heard, and +the track of the Stag as he found it then went off in a fear-winged +flight that might keep on for miles. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +Yan went at a run, and soon found Duff. He had had two long shots at +the doe. The second he thought had hit her. Within half a mile they +found blood on the trail; within another half-mile the blood was no +more seen and the track seemed to have grown very large and strong. +The snow was drifting and the marks not easily read, yet Yan knew +very soon that the track they were on was not that of the wounded doe, +but was surely that of her antlered mate. Back on the trail they ran +till they solved the doubt, for there they learned that the Stag, +after making his own escape, had come back to change off: an old, old +trick of the hunted whereby one deer will cleverly join on and carry +on the line of tracks to save another that is too hard pressed, while +it leaps aside to hide or fly in a different direction. Thus the Stag +had sought to save his wounded mate, but the hunters remorselessly +took up her trail and gloated like wolves over the slight drip of +blood. Within another short run they found that the Stag, having +failed to divert the chase to himself, had returned to her, and at +sundown they sighted them a quarter of a mile ahead mounting a long +snow-slope. The doe was walking slowly, with hanging head and ears. +The buck was running about as though in trouble that he did not +understand, and coming back to caress the doe and wonder why she +walked so slowly. In another half-mile the hunters came up with them. +She was down in the snow. When he saw them coming, the great Stag +shook the oak-tree on his brow and circled about in doubt, then fled +from a foe he was powerless to resist. + +[Illustration: "The Doe was walking slowly."] + +[Illustration] + +As the men came near the doe made a convulsive effort to rise, but +could not. Duff drew his knife. It never before occurred to Yan why he +and each of them carried a long knife. The poor doe turned on her foes +her great lustrous eyes; they were brimming with tears, but she made +no moan. Yan turned his back on the scene and covered his face with +his hands, but Duff went forward with the knife and did some dreadful, +unspeakable thing, Yan scarcely knew what, and when Duff called him he +slowly turned, and the big Stag's mate was lying quiet in the snow, +and the only living thing that they saw as they quit the scene was the +great round form bearing aloft the oak-tree on its brow as it haunted +the nearer hills. + +And when, an hour later, the men came with the sleigh to lift the +doe's body from the crimsoned snow, there were large fresh tracks +about it, and a dark shadow passed over the whitened hill into the +silent night. + + * * * * * + +What morbid thoughts came from the fire that night! How the man in Yan +did taunt the glutted brute! Was this the end? Was this the real +chase? After long weeks, with the ideal alone in mind, after countless +blessed failures, was this the vile success--a beautiful, glorious, +living creature tortured into a loathsome mass of carrion? + +[Illustration] + + + + +VII + + +But when the morning came the impress of the night was dim. A long +howl came over the hill, and the thought that a wolf was on the trail +that he was quitting smote sadly on Yan's heart. They all set out for +the settlement, but within an hour Yan only wanted an excuse to stay. +And when at length they ran onto the fresh track of the Sandhill Stag +himself, the lad was all ablaze once more. + +"I cannot go back--something tells me that I must stay--I must see him +face to face again." + +The rest had had enough of the bitter frost, so Yan took from the +sleigh a small pot, a blanket, and some food, and left them, to follow +alone the great sharp imprint in the snow. + +"Good-by--good luck!" + +[Illustration] + +He watched the sleigh out of sight, in the low hills, and then felt as +he never had before. Though he had been so many months alone in the +wilds, he had never known loneliness, but as soon as his friends were +gone he was overwhelmed by a sense of the utter heart-sickening +dreariness of the endless, snowy waste. Where were the charms that he +had never failed to find until now? He wanted to recall the sleigh, +but pride kept him silent. + +[Illustration] + +In a little while it was too late, and soon he was once more in the +power of that fascinating, endless chain of tracks,--a chain begun +years ago, when in a June the track of a mother Blacktail was suddenly +joined by two little ones' tracks. Since then the three had gone on +winding over the land the trail-chains they were forging,--knotted and +kinked, and twisted with every move and thought of the makers, +imprinted with every hap of their lives, but interrupted never wholly. +At times the tracks were joined by that of some fierce foe and the +kind of mark was changed, but the chains went on for months and years, +now fast, now slow, but endless, until some foe more strong joined on +and there one trail was ended. But this great Stag was forging still +that mystic chain. A million roods of hills had he overlaid with its +links, had scribbled over in this oldest script with the story of his +life. If only our eyes were bright enough to follow up that twenty +thousand miles of trail, what light unguessed we might obtain where +the wisest now are groping! + +[Illustration] + +But skin deep, man is brute. Just a little while ago we were mere +hunting brutes--our bellies were our only thought, that telltale line +of dots was the road to food. No man can follow it far without +feeling a wild beast prickling in his hair and down his spine. Away +Yan went, a hunter-brute once more, all other feelings swamped. + +[Illustration] + +Late that day the trail, after many a kink and seeming break, led into +a great dense thicket of brittle, quaking asp. Yan knew that the Stag +was there to lie at rest. The deer went in up-wind, of course. His +eyes and ears would watch his trail, and his nose would guard in +front, so Yan went in at one side, trusting to get a shot. With a very +agony of care he made his way, step by step, and, after many minutes, +surely found the track, still leading on. Another lengthy crawl, with +nerves at tense, and then the lad thought he heard a twig snapped +behind him, though the track was still ahead. And after long he found +it true. Before lying down the Stag had doubled back, and while Yan +had thought him still ahead, he was lying far behind, so had gotten +wind of the man and now was miles away. + +Once more into the unknown north away, till cold, black night came +down; then Yan sought out a sheltered spot and made a tiny, red-man's +fire. As Chaska had taught him long ago--'Big fire for fool.' + +When the lad curled up to sleep he felt a vague wish to turn three +times like a dog, and a well-defined wish that he had fur on his face +and a bushy tail to lay around his freezing hands and feet, for it was +a night of northern frost. Old Peboan was stalking on the snow. The +stars seemed to crackle, so one could almost hear. The trees and earth +were bursting with the awful frost. The ice on a near lake was rent +all night by cracks that went whooping from shore to shore; and down +between the hills there poured the cold that burns. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +A prairie-wolf came by in the night, but he did not howl or treat Yan +like an outsider now. He gave a gentle, doglike '_Woof, woof_,' a sort +of 'Oho! so you have come to it at last,' and passed away. Toward +morning the weather grew milder, but with the change there came a +driving snow. The track was blotted out. Yan had heeded nothing else, +and did not know where he was. After travelling an aimless mile or two +he decided to make for Pine Creek, which ought to lie southeastward. +But which way was southeast? The powdery snow was driven along through +the air, blinding, stinging, burning. On all things near it was like +smoke, and on farther things, a driving fog. But he made for a quaking +asp grove, and there, sticking through the snow, he found a crosier +golden-rod, dead and dry, but still faithfully delivering its +message, 'Yon is the north.' With course corrected, on he went, and, +whenever in doubt, dug out this compass-flower, till the country +dipped and Pine Creek lay below. + +[Illustration] + +There was good camping here, the very spot indeed where, fifteen years +before, Butler had camped on his Loneland Journey; but now the +blizzard had ceased, so Yan spent the day hunting without seeing a +track, and he spent the night as before, wishing that nature had been +kinder to him in the matter of fur. During that first lone night his +face and toes had been frozen and now bore burning sores. But still he +kept on the chase, for something within had told him that the Grail +was surely near. Next day a strange, unreasoning guess sent him east +across the creek in a deerless-looking barren land. Within half a mile +he came on dim tracks made lately in the storm. He followed, and soon +found where six deer had lain at rest, and among them a great, broad +bed and a giant track that only one could have made. The track was +almost fresh, the sign unfrozen still. "Within a mile," he thought. +But within a hundred yards there loomed up on a fog-wrapped hillside +five heads with ears regardant, and at that moment, too, there rose up +from the snowy top a great form like a blasted trunk with two dead +boughs still on. But they had seen him first, and before the deadly +gun could play, six beacons waved and a friendly hill had screened +them from its power. + +[Illustration] + +The Sandhill Stag had gathered his brood again, yet now that the +murderer was on the track once more, he scattered them as before. But +there was only one track for Yan. + +At last the chase led away to the great dip of Pine Creek--a mile-wide +flat, with a long, dense thicket down the middle. + +"There is where he is hiding and watching now, but there he will not +rest," said the something within, and Yan kept out of sight and +watched; after half an hour a dark spot left the willow belt and +wandered up the farther hill. When he was well out of sight over the +hill Yan ran across the valley and stalked around to get the trail on +the down-wind side. He found it, and there learned that the Stag was +as wise as he--he had climbed a good lookout and watched his back +trail, then seeing Yan crossing the flat, his track went swiftly +bounding, bounding--. + +[Illustration: "Scanned the White World for his Foe."] + +The Stag knew just how things stood; a single match to a finish now, +and he led away for a new region. But Yan was learning something he +had often heard--that the swiftest deer can be run down by a hardy +man; for he was as fresh as ever, but the great Stag's bounds were +shortening, he was surely tiring out, he must throw off the hunter +now, or he is lost. + +He often mounted a high hill to scan the white world for his foe, and +the after-trail was a record of what he learned or feared. At last his +trail came to a sudden end. This was a mystery until long study showed +how he had returned backward on his own track for a hundred yards, +then bounded aside to fly in another direction. Three times he did +this, and then passed through an aspen thicket and, returning, lay +down in this thicket near his own track, so that in following, Yan +must pass where the Stag could smell and hear him long before the +trail brought the hunter over-close. + +All these doublings and many more like them were patiently unravelled +and the shortening bounds were straightened out once more till, as +daylight waned, the tracks seemed to grow stale and the bounds again +grow long. After a little, Yan became wholly puzzled, so he stopped +right there and spent another wretched night. Next day at dawn he +worked it out. + +He found he had been running the trail he had already run. With a long +hark-back, the doubt was cleared. The desperate Stag had joined onto +his old track and bounded aside at length to let the hunter follow the +cold scent. But the join-on was found and the real trail read, and +the tale that it told was of a great Stag wearing out, too tired to +eat, too scared to sleep, with a tireless hunter after. + +[Illustration] + + + + +VIII + + +[Illustration] + +A last long follow brought the hunt back to familiar ground--a +marsh-encompassed tract of woods with three ways in. There was the +deer's trail entering. Yan felt he would not come out there, for he +knew his foe was following. So swiftly and silently the hunter made +for the second road on the down-wind side, and having hung his coat +and sash there on a swaying sapling, he hastened to the third way +out, and hid. After a while, seeing nothing, Yan gave the low call +that the jaybird gives when there's danger abroad in the woods. + +[Illustration] + +All deer take guidance from the jay, and away off in the encompassed +woods Yan saw the great Stag with wavering ears go up a high lookout. +A low whistle turned him to a statue, but he was far away with many a +twig between. For some seconds he stood sniffing the wind and gazing +with his back to his foe, watching the back trail, where so long his +enemy had been, but never dreaming of that enemy in ambush ahead. Then +the breeze set the coat on the sapling a-fluttering. The Stag quickly +quit the hillock, not leaping or crashing through the brush,--he had +years ago got past that,--but silent and weasel-like threading the +maze, he disappeared. Yan crouched in the willow thicket and strained +his every sense and tried to train his ears for keener watching. A +twig ticked in the copse that he was in. Yan slowly rose with nerve +and sense at tightest tense, the gun in line--and as he rose, there +also rose, but fifteen feet away, a wondrous pair of bronze and ivory +horns, a royal head, a noble form behind it, and face to face they +stood, Yan and the Sandhill Stag. At last--at last, his life was in +Yan's hands. The Stag flinched not, but stood and gazed with those +great ears and mournful, truthful eyes, and the rifle leaped but sank +again, for the Stag stood still and calmly looked him in the eyes, and +Yan felt the prickling fading from his scalp, his clenched teeth +eased, his limbs, bent as to spring, relaxed and manlike stood erect. + +'_Shoot, shoot, shoot now! This is what you have toiled for_,' said a +faint and fading voice, and spoke no more. + +[Illustration] + +But Yan remembered the night when he, himself run down, had turned to +face the hunting wolves, he remembered too that night when the snow +was red with crime, and now between him and the other there he dimly +saw a vision of an agonizing, dying doe, with great, sad eyes, that +only asked, 'What harm have I done you?' A change came over him, and +every thought of murder went from Yan as they gazed into each other's +eyes--and hearts. Yan could not look him in the eyes and take his +life, and different thoughts and a wholly different concept of the +Stag, coming--coming--long coming--had come. + + * * * * * + +"Oh, beautiful creature! One of our wise men has said, the body is the +soul made visible; is your spirit then so beautiful--as beautiful as +wise? We have long stood as foes, hunter and hunted, but now that +is changed and we stand face to face, fellow-creatures looking in each +other's eyes, not knowing each other's speech--but knowing motives and +feelings. Now I understand you as I never did before; surely you at +least in part understand me. For your life is at last in my power, yet +you have no fear. I knew of a deer once, that, run down by the hounds, +sought safety with the hunter, and he saved it--and you also I have +run down and you boldly seek safety with me. Yes! you are as wise as +you are beautiful, for I will never harm a hair of you. We are +brothers, oh, bounding Blacktail! only I am the elder and stronger, +and if only my strength could always be at hand to save you, you would +never come to harm. Go now, without fear, to range the piney hills; +never more shall I follow your trail with the wild wolf rampant in my +heart. Less and less as I grow do I see in your race mere flying +marks, or butcher-meat. We have grown, Little Brother, and learned +many things that you know not, but you have many a precious sense that +is wholly hidden from us. Go now without fear of me. + +[Illustration] + +"I may never see you again. But if only you would come sometimes and +look me in the eyes and make me feel as you have done to-day, you +would drive the wild beast wholly from my heart, and then the veil +would be a little drawn and I should know more of the things that wise +men have prayed for knowledge of. And yet I feel it never will be--I +have found the Grail. I have learned what Buddha learned. I shall +never see you again. Farewell." + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trail of the Sandhill Stag, by +Ernest Seton-Thompson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF THE SANDHILL STAG *** + +***** This file should be named 32319.txt or 32319.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/1/32319/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Steven desJardins +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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