The Adventures of Fleetfoot and Her Fawns

d clouds piled up against the sky, and patches

Mount Olaf and Old Bald-face, a peak that had been burned bare of trees by a fo

they prefer a vegetarian diet, though, at that, she didn't intend to go too near.

sters played together while their mothers gossiped over their cuds. The cool breeze ruffled their fur

k down the trail to where there was more herbage to browse upon, Fleet Foot lingering along to allow the

d to peer, with braced hoofs, over the precipice, which here dropped sheer to the rocks

foot of the falls, where one mig

path ahead. And the tinkle of the falling water filled her ears til

one was different. In the first place, it was such a tiny thing,-for a cloud. And it danced about in the most amusing manner,-much faster than any cloud shado

rcling shadow, they would have discovered that it was a giant bird that made it. In short, it was B

pread out like the wings of an aeroplane. He was mostly a muddy brown, with white head and fan-spread tail, and he smelled horribly fishy, for he

issed to

to their rescue, should he attack the fawns. For he knew from experience

his back, and fly away to his nest. But it would be awfully heavy to carry and of course it would kick and wriggle

might have killed one right there,

er would come racing back and cut him to

s off the edge of the precipice, and it would leap to its death on the ro

at the dancing shadow, he suddenly flapped his wings about the tinier fa

e; for at the fawn's first bleat of terror, Fleet Foot heard a

and the frightened fawn turned first this way, then that, in his endeavor to get away. Nearer and nearer the edge of the p

hind legs, she struck at Baldy's head with her sharp hoofs, tearing great wounds in his scalp. Then, with a

ghtened. His back was bruised, but that would heal

he could ever have escaped the beat of those wings. Fleet Foot praised him mightily for having

nger marred

ch, they would catch a glimpse of a tawny form flattened along the limb

hemlock thicket, or a cedar swamp,

lack tassels and the black stripe down the middle of his back. And my, how his claws crunched the bark as he sharpened

suddenly some spirit of their ancestors, (or was it some guardian angel of their antlered tribe?) wou

sharp drive of her little hoofs, and he was terribly afraid of pain. (Did he not wear a great scar in hi

ve that presently brought her back to where she could peer curi

y on Old Man Red Fox, and Fris

the fawns watching Frisky, these children of host

light, or the sudden whirr of a startled pheasant's wings, or a quarrel between some wicked red squirrel caught robbing a cro

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