White Tail took up the lead, and Young Black Buck followed. They stole away in the woods almost as silently as shadows. A well worn trail led into the darkest and thickest part of the forest, and as this kept going straight away from the man hunter’s camp they stuck close to it.
“Maybe this is Puma’s trail,” Young Black Buck remarked after they had gone a considerable distance. “No deer have been this way.”
“No, of course not. This isn’t our woods, but Puma hasn’t been here. I could smell him.”
“Then Timber Wolf and his pack made it.”
“No, it hasn’t Timber’s smell either.”
White Tail had his nose close to the ground, and while he couldn’t quite make out whose trail it was he felt confident that it wasn’t that of either Puma or Timber.
Still it is always dangerous to follow an unknown trail. It’s against the law of the herd for the leader to do so, and had White Tail known it he would have taken to the thick woods. But he thought he was doing right, for it was much easier to travel faster in this way.
He was jogging along cautiously when the trail became suddenly very strong and fresh. He stopped and flung up his head. That animal odor that had caught his nose, startled him.
But the sight which met his eyes startled him more than the strange odor. There standing directly in the broad trail, grinning at them, was Buster the Bear. What a shock it gave him! Buster seemed to tower up so big that he looked like a giant of a bear.
With a snort of fear, White Tail turned and sprang out of the trail, clearing a clump of bushes in a beautiful jump, and calling to Young Black Buck to follow. The latter didn’t need this advice, for he was already out of the trail, running for dear life.