He chose what appeared to be one of the most used paths and followed this as quietly as he could. He soon found that still hunting on snow-shoes and with moccasined feet on bare ground were two very different matters. He was not yet sufficiently adept on the big webs to keep them from clacking as the rim of one shoe passed over the rim of the other. The harder he tried not to the more noise he made, it seemed. Clack, clack, clack. It was most annoying. He stopped to consider. Then on the impulse of a sudden idea he slipped his shoes off and dropped down into the path he had been following. Here he could walk without noise. The droppings of the deer, known as "sign" by all hunters, were numerous, and the brush within reach from the path showed indications of having been browsed on recently, and he found several places where sharp hoofs had pawed away the snow since the last storm.
The path twisted and turned and doubled on itself, showing that it had been made originally by aimless wandering in quest of food. Other paths crossed it, but Walter avoided these, judging that the one he was on was as likely as another to lead him to the quarry. At length after an abrupt turn it led straight into a thicket of hemlocks, young growth. As he approached this there was a sharp sound like the sudden release of compressed air, repeated a second later from a point a trifle to the right. It was the alarm warning of deer. Above the snow just to the right of and beyond the thicket he caught a glimpse of the heads and necks of two does moving rapidly. The effect was most peculiar. It was as if they possessed no bodies until one of them made a high jump for just an instant, bringing the back and rump, with its snowy white flag stiffly erect, into view.
"From the way they go I should think it was the hunting season. I had an idea that they wouldn't be particularly timid, but those two lit out in a regular panic. Act like they'd been hunted until their nerves were all on edge," thought the boy as he hurriedly forced his way through the thicket.
He had no expectation of finding more there, but was eager to see where the two had been lying and then to follow them up as rapidly as possible. So he burst through the screen of hemlocks in rather precipitate fashion, an unusual proceeding for Upton, whose natural caution had been supplemented by a very thorough training in woodcraft during the three summers he had spent at Woodcraft Camp. The instant he was through the barrier he realized the folly of his action. Facing him, not ten feet away, was a big buck with a splendid pair of antlers.
NOT TEN FEET AWAY WAS A BIG BUCK
If the does were panic stricken their lord was not. On the contrary he was the embodiment of vicious anger. The hair on his neck was raised, his eyes blazed with rage; and he was pawing the snow with impatience. These details were registered on Walter's mind to be recalled later, but at the time he was conscious of but one thing—that he had stumbled into a predicament which might easily cost him his life. No sooner was he clearly in view than the buck charged. Telling of it at the cabin that night Upton declared that in that fleeting instant it seemed to him that he was staring at a whole forest of horns pointed straight for him.