came down
like India rubber on the other side, that one might have thought he was
measuring the grass, and keeping an account of his jumps in his head.

[Illustration: "In an instant I was free."]

For one instant I looked around for the hounds, and I saw there was not
more than half a dozen following him, and I could only see the two
hunters I had seen before, and these was still a good way back. As for
Jone, I couldn't hear him at all, and he must have been left far
behind. There was still the woods on the other side, and the deer
seemed to run to keep away from that and to cross the road, and he
came nearer and nearer until I fancied he kept an eye on me as if he
was wondering if I was of any consequence, and if I could hinder him
from crossing the road and getting away into the valley below where
there was a regular wilderness of woods and underbrush.

If he does that, I thought, he will be gone in a minute and I shall
lose him, and the hunt will be over. And for fear he would make for the
hedge and jump over it, not minding me, I jerked out my handkerchief
and shook it at him. You can't imagine how this frightened him. He
turned sharp to the right, dashed up the hill, cleared a hedge and was
gone. I gave a gasp and a scream as I saw him disappear. I believe I
cried, but I didn't stop, and glad I was that I didn't; for in less
than a minute I had come to a cross lane which led in the very
direction the deer had taken. I turned into this lane and went on as
fast as I could, and I soon found that it led through a thick wood.
Down in the hollow, which I could not see into, I heard a barking and
shouting, and I kept on just as fast as I could make that tricycle go.
Where the lane led to, or what I should ever come to, I didn't think
about. I was hunting a stag, and all I cared for was to feel my
tricycle bounding beneath me.

I may have gone a half a mile or two miles--I have not an idea how far
it was--when suddenly I came to a place where there was green grass and
rocks in an opening in the woods, and what a sight I saw! There was
that beautiful, grand, red deer half down on his knees and perfectly
quiet, and there was one of the men in red coats coming toward him with
a great knife in his hand, and a little farther back was three or four
dogs with another man, still on horseback, whipping them to keep them
back, though they seemed willing enough to lie there with their tongues
out, panting. As the man with the k