And then he could not explain. How could he describe all the terror, all the loneliness and all the fear that he had felt to one who had never known these things? Bud gritted his teeth and looked stubbornly away.
"Its what?" Gramps asked.
"Its father and mother have run away and left it," Bud blurted out.
"Let me put you straight on that, Bud. Its mother ran away when she smelled or saw you and Shep coming. Fathers of baby deer like this, well, they just don't care much for their young 'uns."
Bud was astonished. "You mean it had no father?"
Gramps said solemnly, "I haven't seen any fawn-carrying storks round here for might' nigh two years. This baby had a father all right, maybe Old Yellowfoot himself."
"Who's Old Yellowfoot?"
"If you'd been round here for two months 'stead of just a couple days, you'd never ask that," Gramps said. "Old Yellowfoot's nothing 'cept the biggest and smartest buck ever left a hoofprint in Bennett's Woods or, as far as that goes, in Dishnoe County. Why, Boy, Old Yellowfoot's got a rack of antlers the like of which even I never saw, and I've been hunting deer in these parts for, let's see, it's lacking two of fifty years."
"You . . ." Bud hugged the fawn a little tighter. "You shoot the deer?"
Gramps said seriously, "You look at that fawn, then you look at me, and you ask in the same tone you might use if you thought I was going to murder some babies, 'You shoot the deer?' Well, I don't shoot the deer. I could, mind you, 'cause next to lacing your own shoes, just about the easiest thing round here is shooting a deer. But I don't even hunt the deer. I hunt Old Yellowfoot and some day, so help me, his head'll hang 'longside the one you saw in the sitting room."