The San Francisco call., 1909-11-27

hillside in the Adirondacks He had
entered this deer world of green
grasses and rich beech mast when the
SHOWS and the green was rare and
far between. May is still a chilly sea-
son there. but the sun glowed warmly
through the bare branches of the
thicket and tickled his spotted chest
nut coat even while he lay beside his
mother in the warm bed she had
-scraped together for his welcome
His little stomach was first to send
current of instinct to his brain, and
he fed himself so heartily that he was
asleep almost before he realized that
he was satisfied. The sun was gone
when he awoke, stirring under the
gentle affection of the does tongue as
she licked his sides, his ears, his eyes
and cuddled- him with her warm neck
His little damp nose told him he was
close to the larder, SO again he fed
until his tiny barrel grew bloated with
repletion, and again he slept.
When he awoke his mother was
gone, and Capers was scared He
bieated his woe and snuggled closer
into the twigs and dried grass, for the
hillside was frosty in the chill of
dawn Presently another deer stamped
close by, and Capers shivered for he
had not known there were any other
living things in the world but himself
and his mother.
When a big buck pushed his head
through the brush and shifted scorn-
fully Capers almost died from fright.
Then. silent as the moonlight. his
mother slipped into her home and
stamped with menace and anger at the
buck. That lordly person, denuded of
his antlers, withdrew. feeling none of
"a ~ 10
into the first SHOWS Of the preceding
winter.
Capers mother had been out for
breakfast. When she selected home
for the baby she expected she had cho-
sen well. Running out from the
higher hills back of the lake below till
trimmed with snow and ice, was a ridge
: ending in broad. thicket covered
knoll 1t lay where the first warm
suns of spring would most easily find
ii and the tiny thing that should lie
and play upon it.
Enemies must mount its steep sides
and give warning by their effort or
must come across the ridge whose
curving contours promised to clog the
air OF the knoll with their scent, no
matter whence blew the breeze. 1t was
too wild and desolate for the foxes and
too far from the steady diet of feath-
cred flesh and rabbit rumps that most
charm them.
Food must not be too distant. and
the doe knew that first of the green
things of spring would sprout between
the fading snow riffs on the marsh at
the lake side. In the hour before
dawn she had left her baby to seek the
earliest tufts of the green to snatch
some budding leaves from the brush
and drink in the icy lake a long
bumper to the health and long life of
Capers.
He was safe enough, though alone.
Tor his mother had never seen an en-
emy to threaten her life except man.
and no men were in the woods then.
She mad heard of the cougars and
capers wouid-hear of them. too. Some
winter night when he was stamping
with the herd in their yard in the snow
he was sure to be told by an old gray
buck with dozen tines on his antIers
or how the veteran had escaped the
cougar years before. Old bucks are
prone to such boasting 1t was ALWAYS
tale OF feeding al the base of a rocky
cllfI sudden scent full of murder and
quick glance above to see the croucb-
ing catlike form on projecting rock
he leaped as l saw him." the old
DUCK said, and l sprang, too. but nv
children, | was wise even as child-as
wish some of you were-and I did
not spring away from him. I snrapo
toward him. right at the face Of tbe
Gill; Thus the murderer with all his
claws and teeth ready for me landed
where had been, but where / was NOT
Believe me, no deer in all these hills
could keep pace with me in those davs
even through the thickets Before the
cougar could turn was far away.o
Capers' youthful fancy was still
spared such terrors. When he woke
again 1T was broad day. His mother
was browsing near by and he con-
cluded he was old enough to join her.
To this end he staggered to upright-
ness on his dicky legs and stood re-
vealed, mostly head, ears and those
same legs
His walk was wabbly, but only for a
little while, and in a few days he was