I had measured
and studied it too often to fail to recognize its owner. There was
browse here still, to be had for the cropping. I began to be hopeful for
my little flock, and to feel a higher regard for their leader, who
could plan a yard, it seemed, as well as a flight, and who could not be
deceived by early abundance into outlining a small yard, forgetting the
late snows and the spring hunger.

I was stooping to examine the more recent signs, when a sharp snort
made me raise my head quickly. In the path before me stood a doe, all
a-quiver, her feet still braced from the suddenness with which she had
stopped at sight of an unknown object blocking the path ahead. Behind
her two other deer checked themselves and stood like statues, unable to
see, but obeying their leader promptly.

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

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

I followed her flight anxiously, finding here and there, where the snow
had been softest, dog tracks big and little. The deer was tired from
long running, apparently; the deep holes in the snow, where she had
broken throu