And
then I thought of the way a cow gets up, first one end, then the
other, rising from the fore knees at last with puff and grunt and
clacking of joints; and I took my first lesson in wholesome
respect for the creature whom I already considered mine by right
of discovery, and whose splendid head I saw, in anticipation,
adorning the hall of my house--to the utter discomfiture of Old
Wally.
At another time I crept up to an old road beyond the little deer
pond, where three deer, a mother with her fawn, and a young
spike-buck, were playing. They kept running up and down, leaping
over the trees that lay across the road with marvelous ease and
grace--that is, the two larger deer. The little fellow followed
awkwardly; but he had the spring in him, and was learning rapidly
to gather himself for the rise, and lift his hind feet at the top
of his jump, and come down with all fours together, instead of
sprawling clumsily, as a horse does.
I saw the perfection of it a few days later. I was sitting before
my tent door at twilight, watching the herons, when there was a
shot and a sudden crash over on their side. In a moment the big
buck plunged out of the woods and went leaping in swift bounds
along the shore, head high, antlers back, the mighty muscles
driving him up and onward as if invisible wings were bearing him.
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