"Dig in. It takes a pile of Mother's pancakes and a heap of sausage to see a man through a day in the deer woods."
After breakfast they stepped into the cold predawn blackness. Shep, tied as usual while deer season was in swing, came to the end of his rope, whined, pressed his nose against their hands and pleaded as usual to be taken along.
Gramps stopped just inside Bennett's Woods, almost in sight of the barn. It was still too dark to shoot, but they often saw deer from the barn and they could expect to see deer from now on. It was true that Old Yellowfoot had never been seen so near the farm but that was no sign he never would be.
They went on as soon as they were able to sight clearly on a target a hundred yards away. Their jackets were tightly buttoned and their earmuffs pulled down against the frosty air. A doe faded across the trail like a gray ghost, leaving sharply imprinted tracks in the snow. A little farther on they saw a small buck. Then a doe and fawn ran wildly through the woods, and Gramps halted in his tracks.
Bud stared. Since he had come to Bennett's Farm he had seen many deer, and many of them had been running. But he had never seen any of them run like this.
"That pair's scared," Gramps said. "In all my born days I haven't seen ten deer run that fast, and the last one had wolves on its trail."
"Could wolves be chasing these?" Bud asked.
Gramps shook his head. "As far as I know, there hasn't been a wolf in Bennett's Woods for twenty-six years. Me and Eli Dockstader got the last one, and there's nothing else I can recall offhand that could start a couple of deer running that way and keep 'em running. Still, it has to be something."
Off in the distance, rifles began to crack as hunters started sighting and shooting at deer. Gramps and Bud paid no attention, for if other hunters could see them, they must be ordinary deer.
When they reached Dockerty's Swamp, where Gramps thought they might find Old Yellowfoot, Bud said, "Let me go down and track him through, Gramps, and you take it easy."