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. They always make a mistake in doing
so. Perhaps the trait is the survival of an era of peace on earth;
perhaps it is a prophecy of the golden age of the future. The
business of this age is murder,--the slaughter of animals, the
slaughter of fellow-men, by the wholesale. Hilarious poets who have
never fired a gun write hunting-songs,--Ti-ra-la: and good bishops
write war-songs,--,Ave the Czar!

The hunted doe went down the "open," clearing the fences splendidly,
flying along the stony path. It was a beautiful sight. But consider
what a shot it was! If the deer, now, could only have been caught I
No doubt there were tenderhearted people in the valley who would have
spared her life, shut her up in a stable, and petted her. Was there
one who would have let her go back to her waiting-fawn? It is the
business of civilization to tame or kill.

The doe went on. She left the sawmill on John's Brook to her right;
she turned into a wood-path. As she approached Slide Brook, she saw
a boy standing by a tree with a raised rifle. The dogs were not in
sight; but she could hear them coming down the hill. There was no