Page:Bambi A Life in the Woods (1928).pdf/273

This page has been validated.
CHAPTER XXIII

The forest was again under snow, lying silent beneath its deep white mantle. Only the crows’ calls could be heard. Now and then came a magpie’s noisy chattering. The soft twittering of the tit-mice sounded timidly. Then the frost hardened and everything grew still. The air began to hum with the cold.

One morning a dog’s baying broke the silence.

It was a continuous hurrying bay that pressed on quickly through the woods, eager and clear and harrying with loud yelps.

Bambi raised his head in the hollow under the fallen tree, and looked at the old stag who was lying beside him.

“That’s nothing,” said the old stag in answer to Bambi’s glance, “nothing that need bother us.”

Still they both listened.

They lay in their hollow with the old beech

[269]

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.