Page:Bambi A Life in the Woods (1928).pdf/137

“As if we hadn’t suffered enough already,” old Nettla began. “We still have this to go through. . . .” She was very angry. Bambi looked at her, and he felt that she was thinking of something horrible.

Three or four magpies had already begun to chatter on the side of the thicket from which the crows had come. “Look out! Look out, out, out!” they cried. The deer could not see them, but could hear them calling and warning each other. Sometimes one of them, and sometimes all of them together, would cry, “Look out, out, out!” Then they came nearer. They fluttered in terror from tree to tree, peered back and fluttered away again in fear and alarm.

“Akh!” cried the jays. They screamed their warning loudly.

Suddenly all the deer shrank together at once as though a blow had struck them. Then they stood still snuffing the air.

It was He.

A heavy wave of scent blew past. There was nothing they could do. The scent filled their nostrils, it numbed their senses and made their hearts stop beating.