The Trail of the Sandhill Stag

  "Darest thou slay me?" said an uncrowned, unarmed king once, as hiseyes fell on the assassin's knife, and in that clear, calm gaze themurderer quailed and cowed.

  So trembled Yan; but he knew it was only stag-fever, and he despisedit then as he came in time to honor it; and the beast that dweltwithin him fired the gun.

  The ball splashed short. The buck sprang up and the doe appeared.Another shot; then, as they fled, another and another. But away thedeer went, lightly drifting across the low round hills.

  V

  He followed their trail for some time, but gnashed his teeth to findno sign of blood, and he burned with a raging animal sense that wasneither love nor hate. Within a mile there was a new sign that joinedon and filled him with another rage and shed light on many a bloodypage of frontier history--a moccasin-track, a straight-set,broad-toed, moosehide track, the track of a Cree brave. He followed insavage humor, and as he careered up a slope a tall form rose from alog, raising one hand in peaceable gesture. Although Yan was behind,the Indian had seen him first.

  "Who are you?" said Yan, roughly.

  "Chaska."

  "What are you doing in my country?"

  "It was my country first," he replied gravely.

  "Those are my deer," Yan said, and thought.

  "No man owns wild deer till he kills them," said Chaska.

  "You better keep off any trail I'm following."

  "Not afraid," said he, and made a gesture to include the wholesettlement, then added gently, "No good to fight; the best man willget the most deer anyhow."

  And the end of it was that Yan stayed for several days with Chaska,and got, not an antlered buck indeed, but, better far, an insight intothe ways of a man who could hunt. The Indian taught him _not_ tofollow the trail over the hills, for deer watch their back track, andcross the hills to make this more easy. He taught him to tell by touchand smell of sign just how far ahead they are, as well as the size andcondition of the deer, and not to trail closely when the game is near.He taught him to study the wind by raising his moistened finger in theair, and Yan thought, "Now I know why a deer's nose is always moist,for he must always watch the wind." He showed Yan how much may begained at times by patient waiting, and that it is better to treadlike an Indian with foot set straight, for thereby one gains an inchor two at each stride and can come back in one's own track throughdeep snow. And he also unwittingly taught him that an Indian _cannot_shoot with a rifle, and Natty Bumpo's adage came to mind, "A white mancan shoot with a gun, but it ain't accordin' to an Injun's gifts."

  Sometimes they went out together and sometimes singly. One day, whileout alone, Yan had followed a deer-track into a thicket by what isnow called Chaska Lake. The sign was fresh, and as he sneaked aroundthere was a rustle in the brush. Then he saw the kinnikinnick boughsshaking. His gun flew up and covered the spot. As soon as he was sureof the place he meant to fire. But when he saw the creature as a duskymoving form through the twigs, he awaited a better view, which came,and he had almost pulled the trigger when his hand was stayed by aglimpse of red, and a moment later out stepped--Chaska.

  "Chaska," Yan gasped, "I nearly did for you."

  For reply the Indian drew his finger across the red handkerchief onhis brow. Yan knew then one reason why a hunting Indian always wearsit; after that he wore one himself.

  One day a flock of prairie-chickens flew high overhead toward thethick Spruce Woods. Others followed, and it seemed to be a generalmove. Chaska looked toward them and said, "Chickens go hide in bush.Blizzard to-night."

  It surely came, and the hunters stayed all day by the fire. Next dayit was as fierce as ever. On the third day it ceased somewhat, andthey hunted again. But Chaska returned with his gun broken by a fall,and after a long silent smoke he said:

  "Yan hunt in Moose Mountain?"

  "No!"

  "Good hunting. Go?"

  Yan shook his head.

  Presently the Indian, glancing to the eastward, said, "Sioux tracksthere to-day. All bad medicine here." And Yan knew that his mind wasmade up. He went away and they never met again, and all that is leftof him now is his name, borne by the lonely lake that lies in theCarberry Hills.

  VI

  "There are more deer round Carberry now than ever before, and the BigStag has been seen between Kennedy's Plain and the mill." So said anote that reached Yan away in the East, where he had been chafing in anew and distasteful life. It was the beginning of the hunting season,the fret was already in his blood, and that letter decided him. For awhile the iron horse, for a while the gentle horse, then he donned hismoosehide wings and flew as of old on many a long, hard flight, toreturn as so often before.

  Then he heard that at a certain lake far to the eastward seven deerhad been seen; their leader a wonderful buck.

  "Seven Deer, ... their Leader a wonderful Buck."]

  With three others he set out in a sleigh to the eastward lake, andsoon found the tracks--six of various sizes and one large one,undoubtedly that of the famous Stag.

  How utterly the veneer was torn to tatters by those seven chains oftracks! How completely the wild paleolithic beast stood revealed ineach of the men, in spite of semi-modern garb, as they drove away onthe trail with a wild, excited gleam in every eye!

  It was nearly night before the trail warmed up, but even then, inspite of Yan's earnest protest, they drove on in the sleigh. And soonthey came to where the trail told of seven keen observers lookingbackward from a hill, then an even sevenfold chain of twenty-five-footbounds. The hunters got no glimpse at all, but followed till the nightcame down, then hastily camped in the snow.

  In the morning they followed as before, and soon came to where sevenspots of black, bare ground showed where the deer had slept.

  Now when the trail grew warm Yan insisted on hunting on foot. Hetrailed the deer into a great thicket, and knew just where they wereby a grouse that flew cackling from its farther side.

  He arranged a plan, but his friends would not await the blue-jay's'all-right' note, and the deer escaped. But finding themselves hardpressed, they split their band, two going one way and five another.Yan kept with him one, Duff, and leaving the others to follow the fivedeer, he took up the twofold trail. Why? Because in it was the greatbroad track he had followed for two years back.

  On they went, overtaking the deer and causing them again to split. Yansent Duff after the doe, while he stuck relentlessly to the track ofthe famous Stag. As the sun got low, the chase led to a greathalf-wooded stretch, in a country new to him; for he had driven theStag far from his ancient range. The trail again grew hot, but just asYan felt sure he soon would close, two distant shots were heard, andthe track of the Stag as he found it then went off in a fear-wingedflight that might keep on for miles.

  Yan went at a run, and soon found Duff. He had had two long shots atthe doe. The second he thought had hit her. Within half a mile theyfound blood on the trail; within another half-mile the blood was nomore seen and the track seemed to have grown very large and strong.The snow was drifting and the marks not easily read, yet Yan knewvery soon that the track they were on was not that of the wounded doe,but was surely that of her antlered mate. Back on the trail they rantill they solved the doubt, for there they learned that the Stag,after making his own escape, had come back to change off: an old, oldtrick of the hunted whereby one deer will cleverly join on and carryon the line of tracks to save another that is too hard pressed, whileit leaps aside to hide or fly in a different direction. Thus the Staghad sought to save his wounded mate, but the hunters remorselesslytook up her trail and gloated like wolves over the slight drip ofblood. Within another short run they found that the Stag, havingfailed to divert the chase to himself, had returned to her, and atsundown they sighted them a quarter of a mile ahead mounting a longsnow-slope. The doe was walking slowly, with hanging head and ears.The buck was running about as though in trouble that he did notunderstand, and coming back to caress the doe and wonder why shewalked so slowly. In another half-mile the hunters came up with
them.She was down in the snow. When he saw them coming, the great Stagshook the oak-tree on his brow and circled about in doubt, then fledfrom a foe he was powerless to resist.

  "The Doe was walking slowly."]

  As the men came near the doe made a convulsive effort to rise, butcould not. Duff drew his knife. It never before occurred to Yan why heand each of them carried a long knife. The poor doe turned on her foesher great lustrous eyes; they were brimming with tears, but she madeno moan. Yan turned his back on the scene and covered his face withhis hands, but Duff went forward with the knife and did some dreadful,unspeakable thing, Yan scarcely knew what, and when Duff called him heslowly turned, and the big Stag's mate was lying quiet in the snow,and the only living thing that they saw as they quit the scene was thegreat round form bearing aloft the oak-tree on its brow as it hauntedthe nearer hills.

  And when, an hour later, the men came with the sleigh to lift thedoe's body from the crimsoned snow, there were large fresh tracksabout it, and a dark shadow passed over the whitened hill into thesilent night.

  * * * * *

  What morbid thoughts came from the fire that night! How the man in Yandid taunt the glutted brute! Was this the end? Was this the realchase? After long weeks, with the ideal alone in mind, after countlessblessed failures, was this the vile success--a beautiful, glorious,living creature tortured into a loathsome mass of carrion?

  VII

  But when the morning came the impress of the night was dim. A longhowl came over the hill, and the thought that a wolf was on the trailthat he was quitting smote sadly on Yan's heart. They all set out forthe settlement, but within an hour Yan only wanted an excuse to stay.And when at length they ran onto the fresh track of the Sandhill Staghimself, the lad was all ablaze once more.

  "I cannot go back--something tells me that I must stay--I must see himface to face again."

  The rest had had enough of the bitter frost, so Yan took from thesleigh a small pot, a blanket, and some food, and left them, to followalone the great sharp imprint in the snow.

  "Good-by--good luck!"

  He watched the sleigh out of sight, in the low hills, and then felt ashe never had before. Though he had been so many months alone in thewilds, he had never known loneliness, but as soon as his friends weregone he was overwhelmed by a sense of the utter heart-sickeningdreariness of the endless, snowy waste. Where were the charms that hehad never failed to find until now? He wanted to recall the sleigh,but pride kept him silent.

  In a little while it was too late, and soon he was once more in thepower of that fascinating, endless chain of tracks,--a chain begunyears ago, when in a June the track of a mother Blacktail was suddenlyjoined by two little ones' tracks. Since then the three had gone onwinding over the land the trail-chains they were forging,--knotted andkinked, and twisted with every move and thought of the makers,imprinted with every hap of their lives, but interrupted never wholly.At times the tracks were joined by that of some fierce foe and thekind of mark was changed, but the chains went on for months and years,now fast, now slow, but endless, until some foe more strong joined onand there one trail was ended. But this great Stag was forging stillthat mystic chain. A million roods of hills had he overlaid with itslinks, had scribbled over in this oldest script with the story of hislife. If only our eyes were bright enough to follow up that twentythousand miles of trail, what light unguessed we might obtain wherethe wisest now are groping!

  But skin deep, man is brute. Just a little while ago we were merehunting brutes--our bellies were our only thought, that telltale lineof dots was the road to food. No man can follow it far withoutfeeling a wild beast prickling in his hair and down his spine. AwayYan went, a hunter-brute once more, all other feelings swamped.

  Late that day the trail, after many a kink and seeming break, led intoa great dense thicket of brittle, quaking asp. Yan knew that the Stagwas there to lie at rest. The deer went in up-wind, of course. Hiseyes and ears would watch his trail, and his nose would guard infront, so Yan went in at one side, trusting to get a shot. With a veryagony of care he made his way, step by step, and, after many minutes,surely found the track, still leading on. Another lengthy crawl, withnerves at tense, and then the lad thought he heard a twig snappedbehind him, though the track was still ahead. And after long he foundit true. Before lying down the Stag had doubled back, and while Yanhad thought him still ahead, he was lying far behind, so had gottenwind of the man and now was miles away.

  Once more into the unknown north away, till cold, black night camedown; then Yan sought out a sheltered spot and made a tiny, red-man'sfire. As Chaska had taught him long ago--'Big fire for fool.'

  When the lad curled up to sleep he felt a vague wish to turn threetimes like a dog, and a well-defined wish that he had fur on his faceand a bushy tail to lay around his freezing hands and feet, for it wasa night of northern frost. Old Peboan was stalking on the snow. Thestars seemed to crackle, so one could almost hear. The trees and earthwere bursting with the awful frost. The ice on a near lake was rentall night by cracks that went whooping from shore to shore; and downbetween the hills there poured the cold that burns.

  A prairie-wolf came by in the night, but he did not howl or treat Yanlike an outsider now. He gave a gentle, doglike '_Woof, woof_,' a sortof 'Oho! so you have come to it at last,' and passed away. Towardmorning the weather grew milder, but with the change there came adriving snow. The track was blotted out. Yan had heeded nothing else,and did not know where he was. After travelling an aimless mile or twohe decided to make for Pine Creek, which ought to lie southeastward.But which way was southeast? The powdery snow was driven along throughthe air, blinding, stinging, burning. On all things near it was likesmoke, and on farther things, a driving fog. But he made for a quakingasp grove, and there, sticking through the snow, he found a crosiergolden-rod, dead and dry, but still faithfully delivering itsmessage, 'Yon is the north.' With course corrected, on he went, and,whenever in doubt, dug out this compass-flower, till the countrydipped and Pine Creek lay below.

  There was good camping here, the very spot indeed where, fifteen yearsbefore, Butler had camped on his Loneland Journey; but now theblizzard had ceased, so Yan spent the day hunting without seeing atrack, and he spent the night as before, wishing that nature had beenkinder to him in the matter of fur. During that first lone night hisface and toes had been frozen and now bore burning sores. But still hekept on the chase, for something within had told him that the Grailwas surely near. Next day a strange, unreasoning guess sent him eastacross the creek in a deerless-looking barren land. Within half a milehe came on dim tracks made lately in the storm. He followed, and soonfound where six deer had lain at rest, and among them a great, broadbed and a giant track that only one could have made. The track wasalmost fresh, the sign unfrozen still. "Within a mile," he thought.But within a hundred yards there loomed up on a fog-wrapped hillsidefive heads with ears regardant, and at that moment, too, there rose upfrom the snowy top a great form like a blasted trunk with two deadboughs still on. But they had seen him first, and before the deadlygun could play, six beacons waved and a friendly hill had screenedthem from its power.

  The Sandhill Stag had gathered his brood again, yet now that themurderer was on the track once more, he scattered them as before. Butthere was only one track for Yan.

  At last the chase led away to the great dip of Pine Creek--a mile-wideflat, with a long, dense thicket down the middle.

  "There is where he is hiding and watching now, but there he will notrest," said the something within, and Yan kept out of sight andwatched; after half an hour a dark spot left the willow belt andwandered up the farther hill. When he was well out of sight over thehill Yan ran across the valley and stalked around to get the trail onthe down-wind side. He found it, and there learned that the Stag wasas wise as he--he had climbed a good lookout and watched his backtrail, then seeing Yan crossing the flat, his track went swiftlybounding, bounding--.

  "Scanned the White World for his Foe."]


  The Stag knew just how things stood; a single match to a finish now,and he led away for a new region. But Yan was learning something hehad often heard--that the swiftest deer can be run down by a hardyman; for he was as fresh as ever, but the great Stag's bounds wereshortening, he was surely tiring out, he must throw off the hunternow, or he is lost.

  He often mounted a high hill to scan the white world for his foe, andthe after-trail was a record of what he learned or feared. At last histrail came to a sudden end. This was a mystery until long study showedhow he had returned backward on his own track for a hundred yards,then bounded aside to fly in another direction. Three times he didthis, and then passed through an aspen thicket and, returning, laydown in this thicket near his own track, so that in following, Yanmust pass where the Stag could smell and hear him long before thetrail brought the hunter over-close.

  All these doublings and many more like them were patiently unravelledand the shortening bounds were straightened out once more till, asdaylight waned, the tracks seemed to grow stale and the bounds againgrow long. After a little, Yan became wholly puzzled, so he stoppedright there and spent another wretched night. Next day at dawn heworked it out.

  He found he had been running the trail he had already run. With a longhark-back, the doubt was cleared. The desperate Stag had joined ontohis old track and bounded aside at length to let the hunter follow thecold scent. But the join-on was found and the real trail read, andthe tale that it told was of a great Stag wearing out, too tired toeat, too scared to sleep, with a tireless hunter after.