CHAPTER XIV—STARVATION TIME
Fleet Foot, the Doe, would never have dreamed of taking her fawns down to the hay-stack at the Valley Farm, had not the Farmer and his Boy set her leg the summer before, and gained her confidence by their kindness.
But, though the herd had selected a south-west slope where the feeding was good, and though they had trampled the snow till it raised them higher and higher, and they could browse on the limbs of the fir trees, it was proving a cruel winter. As blizzard followed blizzard, and bark and browse alike were frozen stiff, they huddled together, weak with hunger.
Then the thought of the big hay-mow provided for the sheep and cattle proved too much for Fleet Foot, and she resolved to take the fawns, (now well grown,) slip down under cover of the early winter dusk, and there help herself to the few mouthfuls she could reach through the bars. For part of the hay stood in the open meadow, with only a canvas over top to keep it dry, and a few bars to keep it from being blown away.
The other deer of the herd, though they were starving, were far too timid to make the venture with her. To them it seemed a perilous undertaking to go so near human-kind. For they had seen many things in the woods. They had seen the Hired Man with his long black stick that spoke like thunder, and killed more surely than tooth or claw. They preferred to starve!
For Fleet Foot, the dangers of traveling alone with the fawns through the winter woods were many. First there was the chance of meeting Old Man Lynx. For now they would not have the protection of the hoofs and horns of the herd.
Then they might get lost and freeze, should another storm catch them far from the herd-yard. But, once having made up her mind, Fleet Foot whistled to the fawns and started off in a series of long, graceful bounds that carried them over one snow-bank after another.
Had they dared delay, they would have sunk to their knees in the hard, dry snow to rest for a while and nibble the tops of some bush that promised a few mouthfuls of supper, for their empty stomachs fairly hurt. And if it had been freezing in the herd-yard, with its wall of snow, and the crowding bodies that helped keep each other warm, imagine how cold Fleet Foot’s little family must have been, out on the open hill-top! The savage wind and the snow-filled air made it all but impossible at times to draw breath.
But worst of all was the shadow of fear that never left the doe’s anxious mother heart. The tree-trunks crackled alarmingly with the frost, keeping her alert for enemies, and the wind tore savagely through the brush. Of a sudden Fleet Foot’s spine began to prickle! It was one of those mysterious things that she had never been able to account for. But it usually meant danger!