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CHAPTER XI.—SPECKLED TROUT.
The still warmth of Indian summer passed, with its dreamy days and its crisp nights ablaze with twinkling stars.
And Fleet Foot left the fawns to shift more and more for themselves,—though they still followed her about. At first they were puzzled and a little hurt by her growing indifference. Then, as they began to feel the strength of their coming buck-hood, they began to enjoy their taste of freedom.
Indeed, the little rascals even began to watch the bucks, (their big cousins and uncles), who were returning in little bands from their summer’s wanderings. Someday they, too, would have those lordly antlers, and they, too, could join their bachelor explorations, while the does and younger fawns remained safely behind in the low-lands.
Now no longer could they hear Vesper Sparrow trilling in the meadows and locusts twanging in the tree-tops. The brook beds were drying, 'and the deer now pastured along the sedgy shore-line of Lone Lake or splashed knee-deep in the shallows, while here and there the scarlet of a maple told of approaching winter.
No longer did the gabbling of countless ducks fill their ears when the pink sunsets tinted the Lake. Instead, there were many V-shaped flocks constantly migrating to the Southland, where the waters would not freeze.
Now it was that the speckled trout, whom all summer long they had watched flashing silvery through the shallows, began putting on their coats of many colors.—At least the bride-grooms did. The prospective brides remained a quiet brown, for reasons the fawns were soon to learn. (For October is the month when trout start housekeeping together.)