John knew that this group was thoroughly alerted and that
there was no use trying to trail them any longer at that time.He drank from the brook, sat down on a log, and rested forabout an hour. Then he followed the main trail for a whileuntil he came to a place where it forked; one trail led in thedirection of the bedding ground and the other in the directionof an oak grove on the point of another ridge. He knew thatdeer had been feeding on the acorns and speculated that, per-haps, another group might be feeding there. He, therefore,followed that trail until it crossed the brook at a marshy spot.Here he looked for tracks. The tracks were not hard to find;the marsh contained a profusion of tracks. Some were old andsome, made in the water, seemed quite fresh. Close examina-tion revealed that the water in the tracks had not entirelycleared up; they were probably made early that morning andthey pointed in the direction of the grove. He tested the wind;it was quartering from the right and was favorable. He de-cided to ease up the trail and, perhaps, intercept the deer asthey would, more than likely, soon be returning. He noted,here and there, a maple shoot that had been recently bittenoff. He saw the tracks now and then and noted that largertracks were, sometimes, made over smaller ones. This indi-cated a buck was in the group. He kept a sharp lookout andexamined the forest with his glasses. He stopped frequentlyand listened. He came to a place where the trail led througha clearing of some half acre in area; here he listened again.He heard the stamp of a hoof. He stepped back in a thicketand waited. Two doe approached the clearing from the leftand stopped at the edge of the clearing where they wiggledtheir noses testing the air for scent. Satisfied that all was well,they trotted across the clearing, then followed a course parallelto the trail. John waited and looked; presently, he saw acertain bush take on the shape of a rack. Then eyes seemedto add themselves to the picture. Yes, it was the old, cautiousbuck which, at that time, decided that no danger existed andstarted to trot across the clearing. John's bow was in position
