h the outlines of the fawn's figure against the
blending background. There was neither sound nor movement in the
thicket. A tiny greenish-yellow worm, which had let itself down from a
branch on a yard or more of delicate filament, hung motionless and
crinkled, seeming to have forgotten the purpose of its descent. Not a
breath of wind disturbed the clear, balsamy fragrance of the shadowed
air, and the fawn appeared to sleep, though its great liquid eyes were
wide open.

During the brief absence of its mild-eyed mother the little animal was
accustomed to maintaining this voiceless and unwavering stillness,
which, combined with its colouring, made its most effective concealment.
Enemies, hungry and savage, were all about it, searching coverts and
pursuing trails. But the eyes of the hunting beasts seem to be less keen
than we are wont to imagine them--certainly less keen than the eyes of
skilled woodsmen--and an unwinking stillness may deceive the craftiest
of them. Whether because its mother had taught it to be thus motionless,
or because it was coerced by instincts inherited from ten thousand
cautious ancestors, the fawn obeyed so absolutely that even its long,
sensitive ears were not permitted to twitch. Its great eyes kept staring
out in vague apprehension at the wide, shadowy, unknown world.

Suddenly into the limpid deeps of the little watcher's eyes came a flash
of fear, like a sharp contraction in the back of the pupils. A
stealthy-footed, moon-faced, fierce-eyed beast came soundlessly to the
edge of the thicket and glared in searchingly. The fawn knew in some dim
way that this was a deadly danger that confronted him. But he never
winked or moved an anxious ear. He hardly dared to breathe. It was
almost as if a hand of ice had clutched him and held him still beyond
even the possibility of a tremor. For perhaps a full minute the huge
lynx stood there half crouching, with one big, padded fore paw upheld,
piercing the gloom with his implacable stare. He could discern nothing,
however, except spaces of reddish-brown shadow, scored with the slim,
perpendicular trunks of saplings, and spattered thicket with spots of
infiltering sunlight. But the fawn, though in full view, was perfectly
concealed--for he had that gift of fern-seed which, as the old romancers
feign, makes its possessor invisible. No wandering puff of wind came by
to tell the lynx's nose that his eyes were playing him false. At last
the uplifted fore paw c