At last a fog of terror settled down upon him,--a fog which blotted out
every sight and sound, blotted out even his own thoughts, all except
one, which, like a danger-signal in a mist, kept booming through his
brain: "Lost! Lost!"

By and by he was sitting on the piled-up stones and dirt of the slide;
but he had no remembrance of getting to this resting-place, for he was
still befogged.

Something snorted close to his right ear,--loud snort, which banished
stupor, and set his pulses jumping. It was a deer, a beautiful doe in a
coat of reddish-drab, matching the autumnal tints of the forest,
wherever maples, birches, and cedars mingled with the evergreens. She
had bounded upon him suddenly from behind a dead spruce and a mound of
earth.

It was long since the game on this part of the mountain had been
disturbed. Madam Doe had in all probability never seen a man before,
therefore her behavior was not peculiar. A shock of surprise thrilled
through her graceful body as she vented that snort, when she caught
sight of the new-fangled gray animal who had intruded upon her world,
and who sat spell-bound, gazing at her with hopeless eyes, in which
gradually a light broke.

But she did not fear him,--this creature in gray. She stood stock-still,
and stared at him, so near that he could see her wink her starry eyes,
with the white rings round them. She stamped one hoof, kicked an insect
from her ear with another, snorted again, wheeled around, and at last
broke away for the thick shelter of the trees, lightly and swiftly as a
breeze which skims from one thicket to another.