fore him, awaiting the
tragedy that had followed him for years, by lake and clearing and winter
yard, and that burst out behind him now with a cry to make one's nerves
shudder. The glory of his antlers was gone; he had dropped them months
before; but the mighty shoulders and sinewy neck and perfect head showed
how well, how grandly he had deserved my hunting.

He threw up his head as I burst out upon him from an utterly unexpected
quarter--the very thing that I had so often tried to do, in vain, in the
old glorious days. "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? Well, here am I."
That is what his eyes, great, sad, accusing eyes, were saying as he laid
his head down on the snow again, quiet as an Indian at the torture, too
proud to struggle where nothing was to be gained but pity or derision.

A strange, uncanny silence had settled over the woods. Wolves cease
their cry in the last swift burst of speed that will bring the game in
sight. Then the dogs broke out of the cover behind him with a fiercer
howl that was too much for even his nerves to stand. Nothing on earth
could have met such a death unmoved. No ears, however trained, could
hear that fierce cry for blood without turning to meet it face to face.
With a mighty effort the buck whirled in the snow and gathered himself
for the tragedy.

Far ahead of the pack came a small, swift bulldog that, with no nose
of his own for hunting, had followed the pirate leader for mere love of
killing. As he jumped for the throat, the buck, with his last strength,
reared on his hind legs, so as to get his fore feet clear of the snow,
and plunged down again with a hard, swift sabre-cut of his right hoof.
It caught the dog on the neck as he rose on the spring, and ripped him
from ear to tail. Deer and dog came down together. Then the buck rose
swiftly for his last blow, and the knife-edged hoofs shot down like
lightning; one straight, hard drive with the crushing force of a ten-ton
hammer behind it--and his first enemy was out of the hunt forever.
Before he had time to gather himself again the big yellow brindle, with
the hound's blood showing in nose and ears,--Old Wally's dog,--leaped
into sight. His whining trail-cry changed to a fierce growl as he sprang
for the buck's nose.

I had waited for just this moment in hiding, and jumped to meet it. The
club came down between the two heads; and there was no reserve this
time in the muscles that swung it. It caught the brute fair on the head,