All day at a long wolf-lope he would go and send the white hare and the partridge flying from his path, and swing along and scan the ground for sign and the tell-tale inscript in the snow, the oldest of all writing, more thrillful of interest by far than the finest glyph or scarab that ever Egypt gave to modern day. But the driving snow was the wild deer's friend, as the driven snow was his foe, and down it came that day and wiped out every trace. The next day and the next still found Yan careering in the hills, but never a track or sign did he see. And the weeks went by and many a rolling mile he ran and many a bitter day and freezing night he passed in the snowclad hills, sometimes on a deer-trail but more often without. Sometimes in the barren hills, and sometimes led by woodmen's talk to far-off sheltering woods, and once or twice he saw indeed the buff-white bannerets go floating up the hills. Sometimes reports came of a great buck that frequented the timberlands near the saw-mill, and more than once Yan found his trail, but never got a glimpse of him; and the few deer there were, now grew so wild with long pursuit that he had no further chances to shoot, and the hunting season passed in one long train of failures. Bright, unsad failures they, for every day on the trail was a glad triumphant march. [Illustration] He seemed indeed to come back empty-handed, but he really came home laden with the best spoils of the chase. III The year went by. Another season came, and Yan felt in his heart the hunter fret once more. Even had he not, the talk he heard would have set him all afire. [Illustration: The doe was walking slowly, with hanging head and ears.—Page 201.] It told of a mighty buck that now lived in the hills—the Sandhill Stag they called him. It told of his size, his speed, and the crowning glory that he bore on his brow, a marvellous growth like sculptured bronze with gleaming ivory points. So when the first tracking snow came, Yan set out with some comrades who had caught a faint reflected glow of his ardor. They drove in a sleigh to the Spruce Hill, then scattered to meet again at sunset. The woods about abounded in hares and grouse, and the powder burned all around. But no deer-track was to be found, so Yan quietly left the woods and set off alone for Kennedy's Plain, where last this wonderful buck had been seen. After a few miles he came on a great deer-track, so large and sharp and broken by such mighty bounds that he knew it at once for the trail of the Sandhill Stag. With a sudden rush of strength to his limbs he led away like a wolf on the trail. And down his spine and in his hair he felt as before, and yet as never before, the strange prickling that he knew was the same as makes the wolf's mane bristle when he hunts. He followed till night was near and he must needs turn, for the Spruce Hill was many miles away.