THE TRAIL OF THE SANDHILL STAG 



casined foot or the click of a lock is 

 heard in the trail behind him." 



In the days that followed he 

 learned those Sandhills well, for 

 many a frosty day and bitter night 

 he spent in them. He learned to 

 follow fast the faintest trail of deer. 

 He learned just why that trail went 

 never past a tamarack-tree, and why 

 it pawed the snow at every oak, 

 and why the buck's is plainest and 

 the fawn's down wind. He learned 

 J ust what the club-rush has to say, 

 when its tussocks break the snow. 

 He came to know how the musk-rat 

 lives beneath the ice, and why the 

 mink slides down a hill, and what 

 the ice says when it screams at 



night. The squirrels taught him 

 40 



