However, he was steady of head and sure of foot, and the higher he went in that exquisitely clear, crisp air, the more pleased he felt with himself. His great lungs drank deep of the tonic wind which surged against him rhythmically, and seemed to him to come unbroken from the outermost edges of the world. His eyes widened and filled themselves, even as his lungs, with the ample panorama that unfolded before them. He imagined--for the woodsman, dwelling so much alone, is apt to indulge some strange imaginings--that he could feel his very spirit enlarging, as if to take full measure of these splendid breadths of sunlit, wind-washed space. Presently, with a pleasant thrill, he observed that just ahead of him the ledge went round an abrupt shoulder of the rockface at a point where there was a practically sheer drop of many hundreds of feet into what appeared a feather-soft carpet of treetops. He looked shrewdly to the security of his footing as he approached, and also to the roughnesses of the rock above the ledge, in case a sudden violent gust should chance to assail him just at the turn. He felt that at such a spot it would be so easy--indeed, quite natural--to be whisked off by the sportive wind, whirled out into space, and dropped into that green carpet so far below. In his flexible oil-tanned "larrigans" of thick cow-hide, Peddler moved noiselessly as a wild-cat, even over the bare stone of the ledge. He was like a grey shadow drifting slowly across the bleached face of the precipice. As he drew near the bend of the trail, of which not more than eight or ten paces were now visible to him, he felt every nerve grow tense with exhilarating expectation. Yet, even so, what happened was the utterly unexpected. Around the bend before him, stepping daintily on her fine hooves, came a young doe. She completely blocked the trail just on that dizzy edge. Peddler stopped short, tried to squeeze himself to the rock like a limpet, and clutched with fingers of iron at a tiny projection. The doe, for one second, seemed petrified with amazement. It was contrary to all tradition that she should be confronted on that trail. Then, her amazement instantly dissolving into sheer madness of panic, she wheeled about violently to flee. But there was no room for even her lithe body to make the turn. The inexorable rock-face bounced her off, and with an agonized bleat, legs sprawling and great eyes starting from their sockets, she went sailing down into the abyss. With a heart thumping in sympathy, Peddler leaned outward and followed that dreadful flight, till she reached that treacherously soft-looking carpet of treetops and was engulfed by it. A muffled crash came up to Peddler's ears. "Poor leetle beggar!" he muttered. "I wish't I hadn't scared her so. But I'd a sight rather it was her than me!"