Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1906-05-09
FLEETFOOT.

The night was fair and sweet. The
full October moon rode grandly up the
oioudless blue, and through the still
air came the seeping call-notes of
tiny warblers, passing overhead in
their autumnal sOuth-fight.
Along a narrow valley, set between
ramparts of granite hills, tall and
antlered deer deftly picked his sound
less way toward a hill orchard where
mellow applies lay beneath the aged
trees. One of the outposts of a GER
vine host that yearly tends to push
its vanguard over and beyond the Bay
State bounds, this deer had wandered
southwark. Unmarked, he passed a
farmhouse on the hillside, reached
the brook and vanished in the shad-
ow.
Rose, the great farm dog, lay on
the grassy slope before the farmhouse
door. The good dog was uneasy. His
damp, cold nose-pad quivered shiftily
to the gentle uplife of warm currents
waited almost imperceptibly from the
valleys depths. He seemed to sense
q new and disturbing presence. Quick
1y his keen senses caught palpable
faint in the air. UP he sprang and
with head held low, swung in long
lope down toward the brook. His
nerves thrilled with exultation as the
faint grew stronger. When he reached
the brook-bank, the blood quickened
in his veins, for the reek of a not
I
as he stood over his first deer track.
At last he knew the meaning Of life.
This was what he had lived for. The
mad rage of the Scotch deerhound,
the undaunted sayagery of the mas
tiff, the ravening fury of the gray
wolf, all had come down to him
through centuries of domestication.
The spirit Of his forebears possessed
him now. The startled bay, with
which he gave tongue to his discov-
cry, was hushed as he nosed the deWy
ground and snuffed up the warm
scent, Then, tossing his head aloft,
he shock off the weight Of the cen
turtles that had made him a faWning
slave and howled as the gaunt wolf
bowls upon the barren steppe. Next,
turning to the trial, he gave with all
the force Of his powerful lungs the
fuIl-throated hunting cry. No famish-
ing black wolf ever sang a more stir
ring, wild and resonant hunting song.
1t echoed among the trees, startling
the birds on the branches, and the
little furry creatures that creep in the
shadows Of the woods. Come, broth
ers! come away!" it sang, "to the
wild wood and the hills. We hunt
the deer tonight
The rugged granite cliffs tossed it's
echoes from rock to crag along the
valleys length, and so the tidings
sped. Away on the north ridge
1hongrel coon-dog heard it and sent
back an answering cry. He knew Of
old the song of blood. Next a young
hound, Looping across the wide fields,
followed the call.
Again and again the leader sounded
the gathering cry of the pack, the
song of the red fang, the music Of
murder, the raging voice Of blood
thirst AS it passed up the valley,
every dog in whose veins the wolf
blood predominated was carried away
by the excitement OF the chase, and
strained painting, after the hunt.
But one there was who heard it
with terror and alright.
In the hill orchard, the startled
deer sDrang erect, with wide eyes and
dilated nostrils; then Ieaped away
toward a thicket of young hemlock
under the hills brow, where he stood
motionless, head up and ears prieked
forward to catch every sound from
the pack, which, running we'll togeth-
er and in full cry, was coming up
the valley.
TO well the deer knew the mean
ing of that sound. Ever through the
ages, the timid deer have heard it
with a feeling akin to that shiyering
terror-that ungovernable impulse to
f1ight-before which a child fees from
a dark cellar, fearing the ghost, COB
lin, or grisly wolf will leap upon
his back.
So now the noble buck stood, still
as the dark hemlOcks around him, only
waiting to make sure if the terrible,
ever-nearing cries were mouthed upon
his trail AS the pack burst noisily
through a brush fence into the I'm,
Swallowed field below the orchard,
their pied bodies lurching forward,
rising and falling in the moonlight
like the NOTED folds of some mighty
serpent on its prey, the watching
deer stood an instant as if tra1sfixed
with horror. Then, as if conscious of
his great strength, feetness and en-
durance, he bounded high in air,
stamped hard the earth, expelled his
pent-up breath in a shrill whistle, as
If to challenge the pack, and sped
away over the hilltop.
The eager dogs leaped forward but
the deer had mighty strides that ate