In a panic, frightened animals will always flee to human-kind from the danger of more savage foes.They always make a mistake in doing so.Perhaps the trait is the survival of an era of peace on earth;perhaps it is a prophecy of the golden age of the future.The business of this age is murder,--the slaughter of animals, the slaughter of fellow-men, by the wholesale.Hilarious poets who have never fired a gun write hunting-songs,--Ti-ra-la: and good bishops write war-songs,--,Ave the Czar!
The hunted doe went down the "open," clearing the fences splendidly, flying along the stony path.It was a beautiful sight.But consider what a shot it was! If the deer, now, could only have been caught INo doubt there were tenderhearted people in the valley who would have spared her life, shut her up in a stable, and petted her.Was there one who would have let her go back to her waiting-fawn? It is the business of civilization to tame or kill.
The doe went on.She left the sawmill on John's Brook to her right;she turned into a wood-path.As she approached Slide Brook, she saw a boy standing by a tree with a raised rifle.The dogs were not in sight; but she could hear them coming down the hill.There was no time for hesitation.With a tremendous burst of speed she cleared the stream, and, as she touched the bank, heard the "ping" of a rifle bullet in the air above her.The cruel sound gave wings to the poor thing.In a moment more she was in the opening: she leaped into the traveled road.Which way? Below her in the wood was a load of hay:
a man and a boy, with pitchforks in their hands, were running towards her.She turned south, and flew along the street.The town was up.
Women and children ran to the doors and windows; men snatched their rifles; shots were fired; at the big boarding-houses, the summer boarders, who never have anything to do, came out and cheered; a campstool was thrown from a veranda.Some young fellows shooting at a mark in the meadow saw the flying deer, and popped away at her; but they were accustomed to a mark that stood still.It was all so sudden! There were twenty people who were just going to shoot her;when the doe leaped the road fence, and went away across a marsh toward the foothills.It was a fearful gauntlet to run.But nobody except the deer considered it in that light.Everybody told what he was just going to do; everybody who had seen the performance was a kind of hero,--everybody except the deer.For days and days it was the subject of conversation; and the summer boarders kept their guns at hand, expecting another deer would come to be shot at.
The doe went away to the foothills, going now slower, and evidently fatigued, if not frightened half to death.Nothing is so appalling to a recluse as half a mile of summer boarders.As the deer entered the thin woods, she saw a rabble of people start across the meadow in pursuit.By this time, the dogs, panting, and lolling out their tongues, came swinging along, keeping the trail, like stupids, and consequently losing ground when the deer doubled.But, when the doe had got into the timber, she heard the savage brutes howling across the meadow.(It is well enough, perhaps, to say that nobody offered to shoot the dogs.)The courage of the panting fugitive was not gone: she was game to the tip of her high-bred ears.But the fearful pace at which she had just been going told on her.Her legs trembled, and her heart beat like a trip-hammer.She slowed her speed perforce, but still fled industriously up the right bank of the stream.When she had gone a couple of miles, and the dogs were evidently gaining again, she crossed the broad, deep brook, climbed the steep left bank, and fled on in the direction of the Mount-Marcy trail.The fording of the river threw the hounds off for a time.She knew, by their uncertain yelping up and down the opposite bank, that she had a little respite:
she used it, however, to push on until the baying was faint in her ears; and then she dropped, exhausted, upon the ground.
This rest, brief as it was, saved her life.Roused again by the baying pack, she leaped forward with better speed, though without that keen feeling of exhilarating flight that she had in the morning.
It was still a race for life; but the odds were in her--favor, she thought.She did not appreciate the dogged persistence of the hounds, nor had any inspiration told her that the race is not to the swift.
She was a little confused in her mind where to go; but an instinct kept her course to the left, and consequently farther away from her fawn.Going now slower, and now faster, as the pursuit seemed more distant or nearer, she kept to the southwest, crossed the stream again, left Panther Gorge on her right, and ran on by Haystack and Skylight in the direction of the Upper Au Sable Pond.I do not know her exact course through this maze of mountains, swamps, ravines, and frightful wildernesses.I only know that the poor thing worked her way along painfully, with sinking heart and unsteady limbs, lying down "dead beat" at intervals, and then spurred on by the cry of the remorseless dogs, until, late in the afternoon, she staggered down the shoulder of Bartlett, and stood upon the shore of the lake.If she could put that piece of water between her and her pursuers, she would be safe.Had she strength to swim it?
At her first step into the water she saw a sight that sent her back with a bound.There was a boat mid-lake: two men were in it.One was rowing: the other had a gun in his hand.They were looking towards her: they had seen her.(She did not know that they had heard the baying of hounds on the mountains, and had been lying in wait for her an hour.) What should she do? The hounds were drawing near.No escape that way, even if she could still run.With only a moment's hesitation she plunged into the lake, and struck obliquely across.Her tired legs could not propel the tired body rapidly.She saw the boat headed for her.She turned toward the centre of the lake.The boat turned.She could hear the rattle of the oarlocks.
