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

watching him, though he didn’t know it. If he could have seen them and the look of admiration in them, he would have been more eager than ever to find that beautiful stranger.

At other times Lightfoot would steal about through the Green Forest as noiselessly as a shadow. He would peer into thickets and behind tangles of fallen trees and brush piles, hoping to surprise the one he sought. He would be very, very patient. Perhaps he would come to the thicket which he knew from the signs the stranger had left only a few moments before. Then his patience would vanish in impatience, and he would dash ahead, eager to catch up with the shy stranger. But always it was in vain. He had thought himself very clever but this stranger was proving herself more clever.

Of course it wasn’t long before all the little people in the Green Forest knew what was going on. They knew all about that game of hide and seek just as they had known all about that other game of hide and seek with the hunters. But now, instead of trying to help Lightfoot as they did then, they gave him no help at all. The fact is, they were enjoying that game. Mischievous Sammy Jay even went so far as to warn the stranger several times when Lightfoot was approaching. Of course Lightfoot knew when Sammy did this, and each time he lost his temper. For the time being, he quite forgot all that Sammy had done for him when he was the one that was being hunted.

Once Lightfoot almost ran smack into Buster Bear and was so provoked by his own carelessness that instead of bounding away he actually threatened to fight Buster. But when Buster grinned good-naturedly at him, Lightfoot thought better of it and bounded away to continue his search.

Then there were times when Lightfoot would sulk and would declare over and over to himself, “I don’t care anything about that stranger. I won’t spend another minute looking for her.” And then within five minutes he would be watching, listening and seeking some sign that she was still in the Green Forest.

XXXIV A Startling New Footprint

The game of hide and seek between Lightfoot the Deer and the beautiful stranger whose dainty footprints had first started Lightfoot to seeking her had been going on for several days and nights when Lightfoot found something which gave him a shock. He had stolen very softly down to the Laughing Brook, hoping to surprise the beautiful stranger drinking there. She wasn’t to be seen. Lightfoot wondered if she had been there, so looked in the mud at the edge of the Laughing Brook to see if there were any fresh prints of those dainty feet. Almost at once he discovered fresh footprints. They were not the prints he was looking for. No, sir, they were not the dainty prints he had learned to know so well. They were prints very near the size of his own big ones, and they had been made only a short time before.

The finding of those prints was a dreadful shock to Lightfoot. He understood instantly what they meant. They meant that a second stranger had come into the Green Forest, one who had antlers like his own. Jealousy took possession of Lightfoot the Deer; jealousy that filled his heart with rage.

“He has come here to seek that beautiful stranger I have been hunting for,” thought Lightfoot. “He has come here to try to steal her away from me. He has no right here in my Green Forest. He belongs back up on the Great Mountain from which he must have come, for there is no other place he could have come from. That is where that beautiful stranger must have come from, too. I want her to stay, but I must drive this fellow out. I’ll make him fight. That’s what I’ll do; I’ll make him fight! I’m not afraid of him, but I’ll make him fear me.”

Lightfoot stamped his feet and with his great antlers thrashed the bushes as if he felt that they were the enemy he sought. Could you have looked into his great eyes then, you would have found nothing soft and beautiful about them. They became almost red with anger. Lightfoot quivered all over with rage. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Lightfoot the Deer looked anything but gentle.

After he had vented his spite for a few minutes on the harmless, helpless bushes, he threw his head high in the air and whistled angrily. Then he leaped over the Laughing Brook and once more began to search through the Green Forest. But this time it was not for the beautiful stranger with the dainty feet. He had no time to think of her now. He must first find this newcomer and he meant to waste no time in doing it.

XXXV Lightfoot Is Reckless

In his search for the new stranger who had come to the Green Forest, Lightfoot the Deer was wholly reckless. He no longer stole like a gray shadow from thicket to thicket as he had done when searching for the beautiful stranger with the dainty feet. He bounded along, careless of how much noise he made. From time to time he would stop to whistle a challenge and to clash his horns against the trees and stamp the ground with his feet.

After such exhibitions of anger he would pause to listen, hoping to hear some sound which would tell him where the stranger was. Now and then he found the stranger’s tracks, and from them he knew that this stranger was doing just what he had been doing, seeking to find the beautiful newcomer with the dainty feet. Each time he found these signs Lightfoot’s rage increased.

Of course it didn’t take Sammy Jay long to discover what was going on. There is little that escapes those sharp eyes of