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 which he could not fight was closing in on him gradually. They had taken his strength, his courage. His fighting spirit was slowly waning. Out and in among thick cover, into deep gulches, in thick tangles of swampland all night he ran heavily, recklessly. He was no longer afraid of breaking a leg. The only thing he now feared was this fearful yelping, yawning danger which hung like a dead weight upon his foam-streaked flanks.

When the first faint streak of dawn appeared in the east he came to bay at a wedge-shaped crevasse in a sheer cliff. It was an ideal spot for a fight to the finish, one that nature must have provided for him.

When the Renegade Pack closed in they saw him there, his hind-quarters wedged in, with the wall on three sides presenting only his sharp cutting hoofs and his many-pronged antlers. His head was lowered, his legs were wide apart because of weakness, but his eyes blazed and as the pack came close he stamped and snorted with the fury of battle.

Towser, who had never seen a deer before at