“I know what I’ll do.  I know just what I’ll do,” said Lightfoot to himself.  “I’ll find out whether or not that hunter is still following me and I’ll get a little rest.  Goodness knows, I need a rest.”

Lightfoot bounded away swiftly and ran for some distance, then he turned and quickly, but very, very quietly, returned in the direction from which he had just come but a little to one side of his old trail.  After a while he saw what he was looking for, a pile of branches which woodchoppers had left when they had trimmed the trees they had cut down.  This was near the top of a little hill.  Lightfoot went up the hill and stopped behind the pile of brush.  For a few moments he stood there perfectly still, looking and listening.  Then, with a little sigh of relief, he lay down, where, without being in any danger of being seen himself, he could watch his old trail through the hollow at the bottom of the hill.  If the hunter were still following him, he would pass through that hollow in plain sight.

For a long tune Lightfoot rested comfortably behind the pile of brush.  There was not a suspicious movement or a suspicious sound to show that danger was abroad in the Green Forest.  He saw Mr. and Mrs. Grouse fly down across the hollow and disappear among the trees on the other side.  He saw Unc’ Billy Possum looking over a hollow tree and guessed that Unc’ Billy was getting ready to go into winter quarters.  He saw Jumper the Hare squat down under a low-hanging branch of a hemlock-tree and prepare to take a nap.  He heard Drummer the Woodpecker at work drilling after worms in a tree not far away.  Little by little Lightfoot grew easy in his mind.  It must be that that hunter had become discouraged and was no longer following him.

CHAPTER XI:  The Hunted Watches The Hunter

It was so quiet and peaceful and altogether lovely there in the Green Forest, where Lightfoot the Deer lay resting behind a pile of brush near the top of a little hill, that it didn’t seem possible such a thing as sudden death could be anywhere near.  It didn’t seem possible that there could be any need for watchfulness.  But Lightfoot long ago had learned that often danger is nearest when it seems least to be expected.  So, though he would have liked very much to have taken a nap, Lightfoot was too wise to do anything so foolish.  He kept his beautiful, great, soft eyes fixed in the direction from which the hunter with the terrible gun would come if he were still following that trail.  He kept his great ears gently moving to catch every little sound.

Lightfoot had about decided that the hunter had given up hunting for that day, but he didn’t let this keep him from being any the less watchful.  It was better to be overwatchful than the least bit careless.  By and by, Lightfoot’s keen ears caught the sound of the snapping of a little stick in the distance.  It was so faint a sound that you or I would have missed it altogether.  But Lightfoot heard it and instantly he was doubly alert, watching in the direction from which that faint sound had come.  After what seemed a long, long time he saw something moving, and a moment later a man came into view.  It was the hunter and across one arm he carried the terrible gun.