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.