Out they all trooped to the barn, through the walls of snow. The air was still and surprisingly mild. Some Phoebe birds fluttered about the hen houses where Shad had dropped some cracked corn, and Jim Dandy, the big Rhode Island Red rooster, stood nonchalantly on one foot eyeing the landscape as if he would have said, “Huh, think this a snowfall? You ought to have seen one in my day.” The barn smelled of closely packed hay and dry clover. Inside it was dim and shadowy, and two or three barn cats scooted away from their pans of milk at the sight of intruders. Shad led the way back of the cow stall to the calf corner, and there, sure enough, shambling awkwardly but fearlessly to its feet, was a big brown deer, its wide brown eyes asking hospitality, its nose raised inquiringly. “You dear, you,” cried Doris, holding out her hand. “Oh, if we could only tame him; and maybe he’d bring a whole herd down to us.” “Let’s keep him until the hunters have gone, anyway,” Jean said. “Will he stay, Shad?” “Guess so, if he’s fed, and the storm keeps up. They often come down like this when feed’s short, and herd in with the cattle, but this one’s a dandy.” “And the cows don’t seem to mind him one bit.” Doris looked around curiously at the three, Buttercup, Lady Goldtip and Brownie. They munched their breakfast serenely, just as if it were the most everyday occurrence in the world to have this wild brother of the woodland herd with them. “Let’s call up Cousin Roxy and tell her about it,” said Kit. “She’ll enjoy it too.” On the way back to the house they stopped short as the sharp crack of rifles sounded up through the silent hills. “They’re out pretty early,” said Shad, shaking his head. “Them hunter fellows just love a morning like this, when every track shows in the snow.” “They’d never come near here,” Doris exclaimed, indignantly. “I’d love to see a lot of giant rabbits and squirrels hunting them.” “Would you, bless your old heart,” laughed Jean, putting her arm around the tender hearted youngest of the brood. “Never have any hunting at all, would you?” Doris shook her head. “Some day there won’t be any,” she said, firmly. “Don’t you know what it says in the Bible about, ‘the lion shall lie down with the lamb and there shall be no more bloodshed’?” Shad looked at her with twinkling eyes as he drawled in his slow, Yankee fashion, “Couldn’t we even kill a chicken?” And Doris, who specially liked wishbones, subsided. Over the telephone Cousin Roxy cheered them all up, first telling them the road committeeman, Mr. Tucker Hicks, was working his way down with helpers, and would get the mailman through even if he was a couple of hours late.