is the rest of the story, just as I saw it, of the little fawns that I found under the mossy log by the brook. There were two of them, you remember; and though they looked alike at first glance, I soon found out that there is just as much difference in fawns as there is in folks. Eyes, faces, dispositions, character,—in all things they were as unlike as the virgins of the parable. One of them was wise, and the other was very foolish. The one was a follower, a learner; he never forgot his second lesson, to follow the white flag. The other followed from the first only his own willful head and feet, and discovered too late that obedience is life. Until the bear found him, I have no doubt he was thinking, in his own dumb, foolish way, that obedience is only for the weak and ignorant, and that government is only an unfair advantage which all the wilderness mothers take to keep little wild things from doing as they please.

The wise old mother took them both away when she knew I had found them, and hid them in a deeper solitude of the big woods, nearer the lake, where she could the sooner reach them from her feeding grounds. For days after the wonderful discovery I used to go in the early morning or the late afternoon, while mother deer are away feeding along the watercourses, and search the dingle from one end to the other, hoping to find the little ones again and win their confidence. But they were not there; and I took to watching instead a family of mink that lived in a den under a root, and a big owl that always slept in the same hemlock. Then, one day when a flock of partridges led me out of the wild berry bushes into a cool green island of the burned lands, I ran plump upon the deer and her fawns lying all together under a fallen tree-top, dozing away the heat of the day.

They did not see me, but were only scared into action as a branch, upon which I stood looking for my partridges, gave way beneath my feet and let me down with a great crash under the fallen tree. There, looking out, I could see them perfectly, while Kookooskoos himself could hardly have seen me. At the first crack they all jumped like Jack-in-a-box when you touch his spring. The mother put up her white flag—which is the snowy underside of her useful tail, and shows like a beacon by day or night—and bounded away with a hoarse Ka-a-a-a-h!  of warning. One of the little ones followed her on the instant, jumping squarely in his mother's tracks, his own little white flag flying to guide any that might come after him. But the second fawn ran off at a tangent, and stopped in a moment to stare and whistle and stamp his tiny foot in an odd mixture of curiosity and defiance. The mother had to circle back twice before he followed her, at last, unwillingly. As she stole back each time, her tail was down and wiggling nervously—which is the sure sign, when you see it, that some scent of you is floating off through the woods and telling its warning into the deer's keen nostrils. But when she jumped away, the white flag was straight up, flashing in the very face of her foolish fawn, telling him as plain as any language what sign he must follow, if he would escape danger and avoid breaking his legs in the tangled underbrush.

I did not understand till long afterwards, when I had watched the fawns many times, how important is this latter suggestion. One who follows a frightened deer and sees or hears him go bounding off at breakneck pace over loose rocks and broken trees and tangled underbrush; rising swift on one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other side till he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where you must follow like a snail, lest you wrench a foot or break an ankle,—finds himself asking with unanswered wonder how any deer can live half a season in the wilderness without breaking all his legs. And when you run upon a deer at night and hear him go smashing off in the darkness at the same reckless speed, over a blow-down, perhaps, through which you can barely force your way by daylight, then you realize suddenly that the most wonderful part of a deer's education shows itself, not in keen eyes or trumpet ears, or in his finely trained nose, more sensitive a hundred times than any barometer, but in his forgotten feet, which seem to have eyes and nerves and brains packed into their hard shells, instead of the senseless matter you see there.

Watch the doe yonder as she bounds away, wigwagging her heedless little one to follow. She is thinking only of him; and now you see her feet free to take care of themselves. As she rises over the big windfall, they hang from the ankle joints, limp as a glove out of which the hand has been drawn, waiting and watching. One hoof touches a twig; like lightning it spreads and drops, after running for the smallest fraction of a second along the obstacle to know whether to relax or stiffen, or rise or fall to meet it. Just before she strikes the ground on the down plunge, see the wonderful hind hoofs sweep themselves forward, surveying the ground by touch, and bracing themselves, in a fraction of time so small that the eye cannot follow, for the shock of what lies beneath them, whether rock or rotten wood or yielding moss. The fore feet have followed the quick eyes above, and shoot straight and sure to their landing; but the hind hoofs must find the spot for themselves as they come down and, almost ere they find it, brace themselves again for the push of the mighty muscles above.

Once only I found where a fawn, with untrained feet, had broken its leg; and once I heard of a wounded buck, driven to death by dogs, that had fallen in the same way, never to rise again. Those were rare cases. The marvel is that it does not happen to every deer that fear drives through the wilderness.

And that is another reason why the fawns must learn to obey a wiser head than their own. Till their little feet are educated, the mother must choose the way for them; and a wise fawn will jump squarely in her tracks. That explains also why deer, even after they are full grown, will often walk in single file, a half-dozen of them sometimes following a wise leader, stepping in his tracks and leaving but a single trail. It is partly, perhaps, to fool their old enemy, the wolf, and their new enemy, the man, by hiding the weakling's trail in the stride and hoof mark of a big buck; but it shows also the old habit, and the training which begins when the fawns first learn to follow the flag.

After that second discovery I used to go in the afternoon sometimes to a point on the lake nearest the fawns' hiding place, and wait in my canoe for the mother to come out and show me where she had left her little ones. As they grew, and the drain upon her increased from their feeding, she seemed always half starved. Waiting in my canoe I would hear the crackle of brush, as she trotted straight down to the lake almost heedlessly, and see her plunge through the fringe of bushes that bordered the water. With scarcely a look or a sniff to be sure the coast was clear, she would jump for the lily pads. Sometimes the canoe was in plain sight; but she gave no heed as she tore up the juicy buds and stems, and swallowed them with the appetite of a famished wolf. Then I would paddle away and, taking my direction from her trail as she came, hunt diligently for the fawns until I found them.

This last happened only two or three times. The little ones were already wild; they had forgotten all about our first meeting, and when I showed myself, or cracked a twig too near them, they would promptly bolt into the brush. One always ran straight away, his white flag flying to show that he remembered his lesson; the other went off zigzag, stopping at every angle of his run to look back and question me with his eyes and ears.

There was only one way in which such disobedience could end. I saw it plainly enough one afternoon, when, had I been one of the fierce prowlers of the wilderness, the little fellow's history would have stopped short under the paw of Upweekis, the shadowy lynx of the burned lands. It was late afternoon when I came over a ridge, following a deer path on my way to the lake, and looked down into a long narrow valley filled with berry bushes, and a few fire-blasted trees standing here and there to point out the perfect loneliness and desolation of the place.

Just below me a deer was feeding hungrily, only her hind quarters showing out of the underbrush. I watched her awhile, then dropped on all fours and began to creep towards her, to see how near I could get and what new trait I might discover. But at the first motion (I had stood at first like an old stump on the ridge) a fawn that had evidently been watching me, among the bushes where I could not see him, sprang into sight with a sharp whistle of warning. The doe threw up her head, looking straight at me, as if she had understood more from the signal than I had thought possible. There was not an instant's hesitation or searching. Her eyes went direct to me, as if the fawn's cry had said: "Behind you, mother, in the path by the second gray rock!" Then she jumped away, shooting up the opposite hill over roots and rocks as if thrown by steel springs, blowing hoarsely at every jump, and followed in splendid style by her watchful little one.

At the first snort of danger there was a rush in the underbrush near where she had stood, and a second fawn sprang into sight. I knew him instantly—the heedless one—and that he had neglected too long the matter of following the flag. He was confused, frightened, chuckle-headed now; he came darting up the deer path in the wrong direction, straight towards me, to within two jumps, before he noticed the man kneeling in the path before him and watching him quietly.

At the startling discovery he stopped short, seeming to shrink smaller and smaller before my eyes. Then he edged sidewise to a great stump, hid himself among the roots, and stood stock-still,—a beautiful picture of innocence and curiosity, framed in the rough brown roots of the spruce stump. It was his first teaching, to hide and be still. Just as he needed it most, he had forgotten absolutely the second lesson.

We watched each other full five minutes without moving an eyelash. Then his first lesson ebbed away. He sidled out into the path again, came towards me two dainty, halting steps, and stamped prettily with his left fore foot. He was a young buck, and had that trick of stamping without any instruction. It is an old, old ruse to make you move, to startle you by the sound and threatening motion into showing who you are and what are your intentions.

But still the man did not move; the fawn grew frightened at his own boldness and ran away down the path. Far up the opposite hill I heard the mother calling him. But he heeded not; he wanted to find out things for himself. There he was in the path again, watching me. I took out my handkerchief and waved it gently; at which great marvel he trotted back, stopping anon to look and stamp his little foot, to show me that he was not afraid.

"Brave little chap, I like you," I thought, my heart going out to him as he stood there with his soft eyes and beautiful face, stamping his little foot. "But what," my thoughts went, "had happened to you ere now, had a bear or lucivee lifted his head over the ridge? Next month, alas! the law will be off; then there will be hunters in these woods, some of whom leave their hearts, with their wives and children, behind them. You can't trust them, believe me, little chap. Your mother is right; you can't trust them."

The night was coming swiftly. The mother's call, growing ever more anxious, more insistent, swept over the darkening hillside. "Perhaps," I thought, with sudden twinges and alarms of conscience, "perhaps I set you all wrong, little chap, in giving you the taste of salt that day, and teaching you to trust things that meet you in the wilderness." That is generally the way when we meddle with Mother Nature, who has her own good reasons for doing things as she does. "But no! there were two of you under the old log that day; and the other,—he's up there with his mother now, where you ought to be,—he knows that old laws are safer than new thoughts, especially new thoughts in the heads of foolish youngsters. You are all wrong, little chap, for all your pretty curiosity, and the stamp of your little foot that quite wins my heart. Perhaps I am to blame, after all; anyway, I'll teach you better now."

At the thought I picked up a large stone and sent it crashing, jumping, tearing down the hillside straight at him. All his bravado vanished like a wink. Up went his flag, and away he went over the logs and rocks of the great hillside; where presently I heard his mother running in a great circle till she found him with her nose, thanks to the wood wires and wind's message, and led him away out of danger.