He was thankful once more for the painted robe, and also for the wild turkey that he had pilfered, and knowing that he must keep warm, he started on a dreary walk toward the north. The snow was pouring so hard that he could scarcely see, but he heard a sound to his right, and presently he was able to discern an immense stag floundering in some undergrowth in which its hoofs seemed to be caught.
Henry could easily have shot the deer and it would have furnished an unlimited supply of food, at a time when he might be snowed up for days. He always believed afterward, too, that the deer expected to be killed, as it ceased its struggles and looked at him with great, pathetic eyes. It was a magnificent stag, the largest he had ever seen, but he had no heart to shoot. His own eyes met the appealing gaze from those of the king of the woods and he felt sorry. Nothing could have induced him to shoot. He sincerely hoped that the stag would pull free, and as the thought came to him the wish was fulfilled.
The left forefoot, which was entangled, suddenly came loose and unhurt. Never did Henry see a transformation more rapid and complete. The stag, before pathetic and depressed, a beaten beast, expanded in the twinkling of an eye into a mighty monarch of the forest. He stood erect, threw back his great head in a gesture of triumph, looked once more at the human being whom nature had taught him instinctively to dread, but who had not harmed him when he was at his mercy, then stalked away, until he was lost behind the white veil of the snowy fall.
Henry felt gladness. He was glad that he had not shot, and he was glad that the stag had released his foot, or otherwise he would have perished under the teeth of wolves. Then he addressed himself to his own peril, which was great and increasing. He hunted the deepest portions of the woods, but the snow sought him there. He stood under the trees of the thickest boughs, but the white fall gradually poured through, heaping upon his head, his shoulders and the folds of his robe. He would brush it off and move on to another place, merely to find it gathering again, and, by and by, his great muscles began to feel weariness. He plodded for hours in the deepening snow, seeking a refuge from this persistent and deadly fall, but finding none. A sort of despair, almost unknown to him, oppressed him for a little while. He had fought off innumerable attacks of warlike and powerful savages, he had triumphed over hardships and dangers the very name of which would make the ordinary man shudder, and here he was about to be conquered by a mere shift of the wind that brought snow.
He could have shouted aloud in anger, but instead he summoned all his courage and strength anew and continued his hunt for a refuge.
CHAPTER XII
THE STAG’S COMING
The snow, famous in the annals of the tribes as one of the greatest that ever fell so early in the autumn, continued to pour down. Where Henry had sunk to his ankles, he now sank almost to his knees, and the wilderness stretched away, without offering the shelter of any covert or rocky hollow. His exertions made him very warm, but he was too wise to take off the painted coat, lest he cool too fast. To fall ill in the snowy forest, hunted by savages, was a thought to make the boldest shudder, and he took no chances.