And though many a score of crooked frosty miles he coursed, and sometimes had a track to lead and sometimes none, he still went on, like Galahad when the Grail was just before him. For more than once, the guide that led was the trail of the Sandhill Stag.
The track of a mother blacktail was suddenly joined by two little ones' tracks.—[Page 201].
IV
The hunt was nearly over, for the season's end was coming. The moose-birds had picked the last of the saskatoons, all the spruce-cones were scaled, and the hunger-moon was near. But a hopeful chicadee sang "see soon" as Yan set off one frosty day for the great Spruce Woods.
On the road he overtook a woodcutter, who told him that at such a place he had seen two deer last night, a doe and a monstrous stag, with "a rocking-chair on his head."
Straight to the very place went Yan and found the tracks. One like those he had seen in the mud long ago, another a large unmistakable print, the mark of the Sandhill Stag.
How the wild beast in his heart did ramp—he wanted to howl like a wolf on a hot scent; and away they went through woods and hills, the trail and Yan and the inner wolf.