212 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
umphant hero, who has just done bloody battle 
for your sake. Ol Buck strode rather impa- 
tiently up to the doe, but she frisked her sharp 
heels and her white tail disappeared, ghost-like, 
into the gloom of the forest. Ol Buck followed 
her, at a bound, and that was the last the watchers 
saw. 
It was as well, perhaps, if they were believers 
in the traditional gentleness and timidity of the 
deer. For what followed was not pretty, any 
way you look at it. It was, however, natural, 
and it showed, at least, that OI’ Buck was a fellow 
of spirit and that, deep rooted within him, was 
the triumphant instinct to keep his race alive. 
You wonder, perhaps, why the deer remain so 
numerous in our woods, in spite of the hunters, 
when fiercer, stronger animals have vanished, and 
even animals no less protected by law in certain 
seasons than the deer, are fast disappearing also. 
In part, at least, it is because, like Ol’ Buck, the 
male deer are fierce to fight for their mating 
privileges, and strong and ruthless to insist on 
them. 
At any rate, OP Buck caught up with the doe 
