It Was The Cry Of A Hound To The West Of Her.
The Crafty Brute Had Made The Circuit Of The Slash, And Cut Off Her
Retreat.
There was nothing to do but to keep on; and on she went,
still to the north, with the noise of the pack behind her.
In five
minutes more she had passed into a hillside clearing. Cows and young
steers were grazing there. She heard a tinkle of bells. Below her,
down the mountain slope, were other clearings, broken by patches of
woods. Fences intervened; and a mile or two down lay the valley, the
shining Au Sable, and the peaceful farmhouses. That way also her
hereditary enemies were. Not a merciful heart in all that lovely
valley. She hesitated: it was only for an instant. She must cross
the Slidebrook Valley if possible, and gain the mountain opposite.
She bounded on; she stopped. What was that? From the valley ahead
came the cry of a searching hound. All the devils were loose this
morning. Every way was closed but one, and that led straight down
the mountain to the cluster of houses. Conspicuous among them was a
slender white wooden spire. The doe did not know that it was the
spire of a Christian chapel. But perhaps she thought that human pity
dwelt there, and would be more merciful than the teeth of the hounds.
"The hounds are baying on my track:
O white man! will you send me back?"
In a panic, frightened animals will always flee to human-kind from
the danger of more savage foes.
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