he tiger's best gift is to be able to see the
deer; and the deer's best gift is to be able to smell and hear the
tiger.

But then, you may ask, if the deer can always run away long before the
tiger can get at him, does a tiger never catch a deer?

Yes, a tiger does catch a deer once in a while, if the deer happens
to make a mistake! And the deer can make only one mistake like that in
his life, because after the first he gets eaten!

So, you may be sure, the deer tries very hard never to make even that
one mistake.

And what is that one mistake? It is to run straight into the jaws of
the tiger! It may just happen that when the deer hears the tiger
coming, he does not listen quite carefully, and so he does not know
which way the sound is coming. Then, in running away, the deer may
happen to go just the wrong way--and fall into the tiger's jaws.

Or else it may happen that the deer is so frightened that he loses his
head, as it were, and goes just any way--and by bad luck chooses the
wrong way, and falls into the tiger's jaws.

But I must tell you that, although the tiger tries very hard to eat
the deer, _the deer tries still harder not to be eaten!_ Why? Because
if the tiger does not catch the deer for to-day's dinner, he can still
catch some other animal for tomorrow's breakfast, even if he goes
hungry to-night. But if the deer once gets eaten, there is no
to-morrow for, him at all! The tiger is only trying _to get a meal_,
but the deer is trying _to save his life_. That is why the deer
nearly always gets away from the tiger--because he is trying harder
than the tiger.

So the tiger does not get deer to eat much oftener than most children
get roast turkey. The tiger lives mostly on pork, for the wild pigs of
the jungle are such careless animals, as I have told you before. Now
and again the tiger gets mutton also, for the wild sheep are silly
creatures, like other kinds of sheep. In the same way the tiger
sometimes catches a wild goat.

The tiger would really get deer to eat a little oftener than he
actually does if it were not that the deer has two other gifts by
which he can escape from the tiger at the last minute. Those two gifts
are his _quickness in getting started_, and his _speed in running_.
So, even if the deer makes a mistake and runs toward the tiger, he can
still escape from the tiger if he finds out his mistake in time.

For, as you saw at the midnight pool, the deer may be drinking
quietly, when