Meanwhile Sammy Jay was flying about in the greatest excitement, screaming at the top of his lungs, “A fight!  A fight!  A fight!” Blacky the Crow, over in another part of the Green Forest, heard him and took up the cry and at once hurried over to Paddy’s pond.  Everybody who was near enough hurried there.  Bobby Coon and Unc’ Billy Possum climbed trees from which they could see and at the same time be safe.  Billy Mink hurried to a safe place on the dam of Paddy the Beaver.  Paddy himself climbed up on the roof of his house out in the pond.  Peter Rabbit and Jumper the Hare, who happened to be not far away, hurried over where they could peep out from under some young hemlock-trees.  Buster Bear shuffled down the hill and watched from the other side of the pond.  Reddy and Granny Fox were both there.

For what seemed like the longest time, but which was for only a minute, Lightfoot and the big stranger stood still, glaring at each other.  Then, snorting with rage, they lowered their heads and plunged together.  Their antlers clashed with a noise that rang through the Green Forest, and both fell to their knees.  There they pushed and struggled.  Then they separated and backed away, to repeat the movement over again.  It was a terrible fight.  Everybody said so.  If they had not known before, everybody knew now what those great antlers were for.  Once the big stranger managed to reach Lightfoot’s right shoulder with one of the sharp points of his antlers and made a long tear in Lightfoot’s gray coat.  It only made Lightfoot fight harder.

Sometimes they would rear up and strike with their sharp hoofs.  Back and forth they plunged, and the ground was torn up by their feet.  Both were getting out of breath, and from time to time they had to stop for a moment’s rest.  Then they would come together again more fiercely than ever.  Never had such a fight been seen in the Green Forest.

CHAPTER XXXVIII:  An Unseen Watcher

As Lightfoot the Deer and the big stranger from the Great Mountain fought in the little opening near the pond of Paddy the Beaver, neither knew or cared who saw them.  Each was filled fully with rage and determined to drive the other from the Green Forest.  Each was fighting for the right to win the love of Miss Daintyfoot.

Neither of them knew that Miss Daintyfoot herself was watching them.  But she was.  She had heard the clash of their great antlers as they had come together the first time, and she had known exactly what it meant.  Timidly she had stolen forward to a thicket where, safely hidden, she could watch that terrible fight.  She knew that they were fighting for her.  Of course.  She knew it just as she had known how both had been hunting for her.  What she didn’t know for some time was which one she wantedto win that fight.

Both Lightfoot and the big stranger were handsome.  Yes, indeed, they were very handsome.  Lightfoot was just a little bit the bigger and it seemed to her just a little bit the handsomer.  She almost wanted him to win.  Then, when she saw how bravely the big stranger was fighting and how well he was holding his own, even though he was a little smaller than Lightfoot, she almost hoped he would win.