e 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 th