The excitement reached a climax when White Tail had finished his challenge, but Father Buck raised his head again to speak.
“Who next challenges! The law of the herd permits any one under three seasons. Who speaks?”
There was no answer, and no one stepped forward. The aged leader cast his eyes slowly around the crowd to make sure he had missed none, and then returned to the two challengers.
“So be it!” he said. “The leadership shall be settled between these two—White Tail and Young Black Buck. The herd must accept the victor as their leader.”
In the next story will come the combat.
STORY XV
The Great Combat
Now the law of the herd says that the challengers for leadership shall fight until one or the other is victor. If it takes hours or days or weeks it must continue until one is beaten and can no longer fight. The rules are simple. He must prove himself the victor by strength, cunning, intelligence, trickery or any other way. The leader must be supreme so that none again dare challenge his authority.
It is always a battle royal in the woods. It never ends in a draw, except in those few sad but rare cases when horns and antlers get interlocked, and neither can pull away until both starve. Then a new challenge must be issued, and another leader chosen. Of this, both White Tail and Young Black Buck knew, and above all they sought to keep their horns and antlers from becoming interlocked. It availed the victor little to conquer if he starved with the vanquished.
When they sprang toward each other with lowered heads, they kept a wary eye out for the other’s twisted antlers. It was a light charge at first, a mere test of skill and strength; but their heads came together with a shock that sounded throughout the woods.
Then they withdrew, and trotted around each other, waiting for a favorable opening. Both knew that one blow against the side or limbs of the other would cripple his antagonist so the fight would be short. After circling White Tail three times, Young Black Buck launched his head straight for the flanks of his enemy, and for a moment it looked as if he would gain a great advantage; but at the critical instant White Tail turned and met the charge head-on. The clash of antlers was terrific but neither went down.