“How can you tell, father?”
“Listen, my son! You will discover that there is a moment of silence between each crackling of brush. That tells you that whatever makes the noise is leaping, and the heavy crashing of brush tells you that the animal is large. Because it leaps, you know it is not a bear. So we can be almost sure that it is a buck.”
Just as Great Eagle stopped speaking, they saw a large buck moving in long leaps among the brush and small trees. Suddenly, he stopped and sniffed the air. Great Eagle and his son stood perfectly still. The buck looked directly toward them. The breeze was blowing toward the buck and he had caught their scent. Crying Eagle raised his bow but felt his father’s hand upon his shoulder.
“No, my son. The buck is truly beautiful. But our wigwam is full of venison, and we have enough fine clothes to last for a long time. We do not kill the forest animals unless we really need to. Truly, I know how much you want to make a kill and tell your friends of the fine buck your steady hand brought down, but that must wait for another day. We are here to learn the way animals live during the winter, so that when you must hunt for your family, you will find it easy.”
The buck seemed to wait for Great Eagle to speak with his son. Then he leaped away through the forest. Great Eagle and his son spent the rest of the afternoon studying other signs of wild life. As the sun began to sink low in the west, Great Eagle turned and started on the trail for home. After they had gone a ways, Great Eagle halted and motioned for his son to be still. Together the two Indians crouched low and Great Eagle pointed through the trees. There, only three hundred paces away in a clearing, stood a large buck. Off to the right of the buck stood a beautiful brown doe and further on through the trees was another buck, moving slowly forward through the trees.
“Why do we stop, father?” asked Crying Eagle, still crouching low in the snow.
“Because, son, I believe that we are about to see something very rarely seen by humans. The buck in the clearing is standing guard over his bride, the doe on our right. The buck coming through the trees is young and wants the doe, too. So he is challenging the old buck to a duel. The winner will get the doe. In a moment they will face each other in the clearing. They will meet head on and the battle will be on. The buck that gives up first and turns from the battle will be the loser, and the other will claim his bride.”
Soon, as Great Eagle had said, the younger buck entered the clearing. The two faced each other, the younger pawing at the ground while the older stood surveying this young challenger of his right to the doe, who lay watching them calmly from the brush to the side of the clearing. Then the two bucks began to circle. They stopped and almost at once the young one charged. The older buck met the attack head on and there was a loud crash as their antlers met and locked. They pushed and pulled and wrenched until suddenly their antlers were free. They were almost equally matched, for even though the younger buck seemed faster, the older was a veteran of many such battles and knew more tricks in fighting.
Again they locked horns but unlocked quickly this time. Then the older buck’s antlers slashed into the side of the young buck. Back and forth the battle waged and then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. The young buck had had enough. He tossed his head into the air and leaped off into the forest, to lick his wounds and wait for another doe. The old buck walked with what looked like pride to his doe. She rose to her feet and, side by side, they began pushing their noses into the snow to smell out food.
“Come,” said Great Eagle, “let us leave them in peace. You have seen one of the great events in the life of wild animals. Remember it well for you may be called upon to defend the persons and things you love, even when you think the enemy is stronger. Remember how strength alone is not enough. You must know how to fight well in order to win.”