224 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
came and he left the herd, to suffer alone, or, at 
best, with a few of his equally afflicted male com- 
panions, the ignominy of a de-antlered brow, and 
later when his new horns began to grow and he 
rubbed his itching sprouts against the smooth 
birches or hornbeams in the forest, wandering 
back into the swamps and by the refreshing pond 
shores, he still remembered the danger that lurks 
in the man smell, and he became the wariest of 
woodland creatures, taking his sleep in thickets 
moated with swamp or precipice. 
That next September a young buck had the 
temerity to challenge him, but he was still far 
from being an old buck himself, and his antag- 
onist suffered the same fate as befell his opponent 
the year before. The little herd was still intact, 
too, for though many of the fawns had now grown 
up and scattered, there were new ones to take 
their places. Race suicide is unknown among 
healthy deer. It is murder, not suicide, which 
reduces their number. 
Once again, too, Ol’ Buck eluded the hunters 
on the first day of December, and reached the 
mountain reservation with his herd untouched. 
