It was hard going through the powdery snow, into which she sank dangerously every time she came to a drift too wide to leap. And the fawns were having an even harder time, the cold cutting into their lungs ’till it hurt.
At last, straight ahead, gleamed the dim lighted windows of the farmhouse. A few more bursts of speed would get them over the fence and into the pasture lot, and perhaps the wolves would stop at the boundary of man’s domain. But—could they make it? Could they reach that fence before their grim pursuers?
Their eyes were fairly popping with the effort they were making. Here was a mammoth drift that in summer had been a creek, and there a patch of the higher wind-swept ground where the ice might take their hoofs from under them.
Ah! The fence at last! One leap over its smooth pyramid, and with a sobbing cough, Fleet Foot and the fawns were safe, with the wolves not ten paces behind!
Then, suddenly, the door at the farmhouse opened, throwing a long streak of lamp-light across the snow!
The wolves slunk back in fear. But so, too, did Fleet Foot. The terror of the great gray beasts behind her, all her old fear of man flooded back upon her, and what to do she did not know. She dared not go back, nor could she go forward. So she stood stock still, her fawns huddling, trembling against her sides. The sudden light half-blinded her, and made the darkness blacker. What could be its meaning? Curiosity might, at another time, have conquered fear, but now she was trembling in every joint, her spent lungs wheezing with the effort she had made. This was far different from slipping in under cover of darkness as she had planned.
“Father! Come quick! I do believe there is a deer out there—no, a doe, and two fawns!” cried the Boy of the Valley Farm, as the light from the open door threw a long ray across the barn-yard to the pasture beyond.
“Wait! I’ll get her for you!” exclaimed the Hired Man, springing for his gun. But at the Boy’s sharp command he dropped it, shame-faced.
Then from farther back in the evergreens came the spine-chilling howl of the gray wolves, baying their lost prey.
“Wolves, my son!” exclaimed the Farmer, joining the group in the doorway. “Wolves from Canada. It’s a hard winter that has brought them down. I don’t remember seeing wolves since I was a little shaver, forty years ago. And I expect that is what has driven the deer so close. Sh! Come out-side.” The two closed the door behind them. “We mustn’t frighten them away, or the wolves will get them, sure.”