Green Forest Stories, Thornton W. Burgess [ebook reader color screen .TXT] 📗

You see, Sammy is smart, and he knows he is smart. Under that pointed cap of his are some of the cleverest wits in all the Green Forest. Sammy seldom worries about himself because he feels quite able to take care of himself.

But Sammy Jay was worrying now. He was worrying about Lightfoot the Deer. Yes, sir, Sammy Jay was worrying about Lightfoot the Deer. For two days he had been unable to find Lightfoot or any trace of Lightfoot. But he did find plenty of hunters with terrible guns. It seemed to him that they were everywhere in the Green Forest. Sammy began to suspect that one of them must have succeeded in killing Lightfoot the Deer.

Sammy knew all of Lightfoot’s hiding-places. He visited every one of them. Lightfoot wasn’t to be found, and no one whom Sammy met had seen Lightfoot for two days.

Sammy felt badly. You see, he was very fond of Lightfoot. You remember it was Sammy who warned Lightfoot of the coming of the hunter on the morning when the dreadful hunting season began. Ever since the hunting season had opened, Sammy had done his best to make trouble for the hunters. Whenever he had found one of them he had screamed at the top of his voice to warn everyone within hearing just where that hunter was. Once a hunter had lost his temper and shot at Sammy, but Sammy had suspected that something of the kind might happen, and he had taken care to keep just out of reach. Sammy had known all about the chasing of Lightfoot by the hounds. Everybody in the Green Forest had known about it. You see, everybody had heard the voices of those hounds. Once, Lightfoot had passed right under the tree in which Sammy was sitting, and a few moments later the two hounds had passed with their noses to the ground as they followed Lightfoot’s trail. That was the last Sammy had seen of Lightfoot. He had been able to save Lightfoot from the hunters, but he couldn’t save him from the hounds.

The more Sammy thought things over, the more he worried. “I am afraid those hounds drove him out where a hunter could get a shot and kill him, or else that they tired him out and killed him themselves,” thought Sammy. “If he were alive, somebody certainly would have seen him and nobody has, since the day those hounds chased him. I declare, I have quite lost my appetite worrying about him. If Lightfoot is dead, and I am almost sure he is, the Green Forest will never seem the same.”

XXVIII The Hunting Season Ends

The very worst things come to an end at last. No matter how bad a thing is, it cannot last forever. So it was with the hunting season for Lightfoot the Deer. There came a day when the law protected all Deer⁠—a day when the hunters could no longer go searching for Lightfoot.

Usually there was great rejoicing among the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows when the hunting season ended and they knew that Lightfoot would be in no more danger until the next hunting season. But this year there was no rejoicing. You see, no one could find Lightfoot. The last seen of him was when he was running for his life with two hounds baying on his trail and the Green Forest filled with hunters watching for a chance to shoot him.

Sammy Jay had hunted everywhere through the Green Forest. Blacky the Crow, whose eyes are quite as sharp as those of Sammy Jay, had joined in the search. They had found no trace of Lightfoot. Paddy the Beaver said that for three days Lightfoot had not visited his pond for a drink. Billy Mink, who travels up and down the Laughing Brook, had looked for Lightfoot’s footprints in the soft earth along the banks and had found only old ones. Jumper the Hare had visited Lightfoot’s favorite eating places at night, but Lightfoot had not been in any of them.

“I tell you what it is,” said Sammy Jay to Bobby Coon, “something has happened to Lightfoot. Either those hounds caught him and killed him, or he was shot by one of those hunters. The Green Forest will never be the same without him. I don’t think I shall want to come over here very much. There isn’t one of all the other people who live in the Green Forest who would be missed as Lightfoot will be.”

Bobby Coon nodded. “That’s true, Sammy,” said he. “Without Lightfoot, the Green Forest will never be the same. He never harmed anybody. Why those hunters should have been so anxious to kill one so beautiful is something I can’t understand. For that matter, I don’t understand why they want to kill any of us. If they really needed us for food, it would be a different matter, but they don’t. Have you been up in the Old Pasture and asked Old Man Coyote if he has seen anything of Lightfoot?”

Sammy nodded. “I’ve been up there twice,” said he. “Old Man Coyote has been lying very low during the days, but nights he has done a lot of traveling. You know Old Man Coyote has a mighty good nose, but not once since the day those hounds chased Lightfoot has he found so much as a tiny whiff of Lightfoot’s scent. I thought he might have found the place where Lightfoot was killed, but he hasn’t, although he has looked for it. Well, the hunting season for Lightfoot is over, but I am afraid it has ended too late.”

XXIX Mr. and Mrs. Quack Are Startled

It was the evening of the day after the closing of the hunting season for Lightfoot the Deer. Jolly, round, red Mr. Sun had gone to bed behind the Purple Hills, and the Black Shadows had crept out across the Big River. Mr. and Mrs. Quack were getting their evening