Page:The Way of the Wild (1923).pdf/265

 petuous and determined in his ways. His favorite retreat was a clump of hemlocks half a mile from the house.

Late in the winter, he ceased coming to the farmhouse and the children greatly missed him. During the following summer, he was rarely seen. Occasionally, he would be discovered with the cows, but he never came back to his old haunt among the calves.

The following autumn, he had been a very respectable spike horn buck and had mated with a female deer of his own age. They had yarded with several older deer in the Great Bear Swamp which was the favorite retiring place for the deer in the Berkshires. This was a tract of almost impenetrable swamp, five miles across. Here the deer had been quite safe for the winter.

If the children could have seen the tiny fawn that trotted after Red Buck's mate the following spring, they would have been delighted.

That fall, Red Buck had fared rather badly. He had been shot at several times and had escaped to the great swamp the last day of the