White Tail could not mistake the sound of the dogs in the distance. Neither could Young Black Buck, who was instantly on his feet. The dread sound had more to do in curing the sprained foot than the night’s rest, and he followed White Tail, trotting around and sniffing the air in every direction.

“Are they coming this way?” Young Black Buck asked.

“It’s hard to tell,” replied White Tail. “I haven’t picked up their scent yet, but I don’t need to. I hear them.”

“We must be going before they find us.”

“Is your lame leg strong enough?”

“Yes, it’s all right again—a little lame, but not much. Which way shall we go?”

Unconsciously Young Black Buck had been depending upon White Tail ever since danger first threatened them, and this was a sure sign that he recognized qualities of leadership in his rival that he did not possess. And White Tail had accepted it without giving it much thought.

“I think,” he said finally, “they’re off to the right where Downy said the white hunters had their camp. Then we should go to the left.”

“But that will take us to the hunting grounds of Puma and Timber Wolf,” protested Young Black Buck.

“Yes, I know, but we can swing around north of them before we reach their woods. At any rate we can’t run right into danger.”

White Tail took up the lead, and Young Black Buck followed. They stole away in the woods almost as silently as shadows. A well worn trail led into the darkest and thickest part of the forest, and as this kept going straight away from the man hunter’s camp they stuck close to it.

“Maybe this is Puma’s trail,” Young Black Buck remarked after they had gone a considerable distance. “No deer have been this way.”

“No, of course not. This isn’t our woods, but Puma hasn’t been here. I could smell him.”

“Then Timber Wolf and his pack made it.”

“No, it hasn’t Timber’s smell either.”

White Tail had his nose close to the ground, and while he couldn’t quite make out whose trail it was he felt confident that it wasn’t that of either Puma or Timber.

Still it is always dangerous to follow an unknown trail. It’s against the law of the herd for the leader to do so, and had White Tail known it he would have taken to the thick woods. But he thought he was doing right, for it was much easier to travel faster in this way.

He was jogging along cautiously when the trail became suddenly very strong and fresh. He stopped and flung up his head. That animal odor that had caught his nose, startled him.

But the sight which met his eyes startled him more than the strange odor. There standing directly in the broad trail, grinning at them, was Buster the Bear. What a shock it gave him! Buster seemed to tower up so big that he looked like a giant of a bear.

With a snort of fear, White Tail turned and sprang out of the trail, clearing a clump of bushes in a beautiful jump, and calling to Young Black Buck to follow. The latter didn’t need this advice, for he was already out of the trail, running for dear life.

Now back in the broad trail, Buster, who had been nearly as much surprised as they, suddenly roared with glee, his fat sides shaking and wobbling. “Ho! Ho!” he laughed. “What a scare I gave them! And I didn’t open my mouth. I wonder what they’d done if I’d roared like this.”

He let out a roar that shook the leaves off the bushes, and made White Tail and Young Black Buck run harder than ever. To them it seemed as if that roar was trying to catch them, and they couldn’t dodge its echo.

But, of course, Buster wasn’t pursuing them. In the first place, he knew he couldn’t overtake them, and in the second he wasn’t particularly hungry and rarely killed deer or bucks. He was too kind-hearted for that. But he did enjoy a joke, and he thought it was a huge one to scare them half out of their wits.

White Tail and Young Black Buck ran without knowing which way they were going. In fact they might have run straight into the camp of the man hunters if they hadn’t been stopped by the sudden baying of the dogs.

This time the dogs were so close that they couldn’t expect to throw them off their scent. In fact, one of them saw White Tail’s head, and immediately gave the signal. He rushed for them with wild yelps of delight, and two others followed him.

The two bucks swung around in another direction, and ran pell-mell through the woods. The fear of the dogs made them forget Buster. Indeed White Tail realized his mistake now. He knew that Buster could not overtake him in a race, but the dogs of the man hunters might. They would follow them night and day until exhaustion killed one or the other.

“We’re in for it now,” White Tail said to his companion, breathing hard. “The dogs are fresh, and we’re not. We must find a river to throw them off our scent.”

But finding a river in a strange woods was not an easy thing to do. So far as they knew there was no river there. They were completely turned around, and hardly knew which direction to take to reach home.

Young Black Buck soon began to show signs of weariness, and his lame leg hurt him again. In vain White Tail urged him on, but he couldn’t run any faster. The dogs would certainly soon overtake him.

Then White Tail did a magnanimous thing. He couldn’t bear to leave his companion behind to be pulled down by the dogs, while he escaped. No, no, that would never do for one who some day expected to be leader of the herd!

“Young Black Buck,” he said, running along by the side of the panting creature, “you run straight on as hard as you can. I’m going to stop here until the dogs see me. Then I’ll lead them off to the left. So long as they can see me they’ll follow me and forget the scent. When I get them far enough away I’ll run faster, and get away from them. You understand?”

Young Black Buck nodded his head. He was too tired to reply in words. “Then go on! I’ll wait here until the dogs come up.”

It was a risky thing to do, but White Tail felt that alone he could outrun the dogs. At any rate he was going to do that much for his companion.

He didn’t have long to wait. The baying hounds soon appeared, and catching sight of White Tail they started for him with yelps of delight. White Tail sprang away in the bushes, but not so fast that the dogs lost sight of him. He noticed that all three were chasing him. Then, when some distance away from the fork in the trail, he increased his speed.

In a very short time he was out of sight again, but the hounds were on his scent. They had lost Young Black Buck’s, and there was no chance of their picking it up again.

Away on the wind White Tail flew. His tremendous strides carried him far in the lead. Mile after mile he covered, his proud head flung back, his nostrils distended. It was a killing pace, but the dogs held on behind. How long could he stand it? Another mile, and the pace began to tell on him. He was growing weary and exhausted. But the dogs were still coming!

When he began to fear he could not escape, it began to rain, falling gently at first, and then more heavily.

In the next story you will read of how the rain helped him.