Ten minutes later he was glad that Gramps was so eager to fish for Old Shark that he thought of nothing else. He was finding his rod easier to handle and he stopped gripping it desperately. He was becoming accustomed to its feel and balance, and beginning to understand it. And he hadn't called for help.
As they neared the thicket where the black fawn lived, Bud grew excited. But just before they came to it, Gramps swerved from the path into the woods. Bud kept his thoughts to himself. As much as he wanted to see the black fawn again, he wasn't going to ask Gramps to go out of the way for him.
The trees among which they threaded their way were mostly second-growth yellow birch but now and then there was a grove of aspens, a solitary black cherry or a copse of laurel and rhododendrons. It was such hard work to keep from tangling his rod in the twigs and branches that Bud almost bumped into Gramps before he was aware that the old man had stopped.
Gramps stood absolutely motionless and, without speaking, pointed. About a hundred yards away, a very dark-colored doe was leaping toward a copse of sheltering rhododendron. Behind her, matching his mother's every leap, ran the little black buck.
Now, Bud knew the fawn had not been abandoned. Just as Gramps had promised, his mother had come back to look for him and he was in safe care. And between last night and this morning, he had learned to use his legs. Not again, or at least not easily, would any human lay hands on him. The doe and fawn disappeared, and Gramps turned to Bud.
"There's your pal. After seeing his mammy, I know where he gets his color."
"I figured she'd take him away from that tote road after you and Shep found out where he was."
"The path we followed used to be a road. The lumbermen who cut the pine and hemlock that was in here made it and a hundred more like it."
Gramps shrugged. "I reckon 'cause they toted things back and forth on them."
"Saw the tail end of it but took no part. I wasn't much bigger'n that little black fawn. Been here ever since."
"When they cut the forests . . ." Bud began.
Gramps swerved at right angles to the direction they had been following and Bud wondered. Had Gramps brought him this way so Bud could see for himself that the black fawn was safe? If he had, what lay behind it? Bud was forced to concede that, if Gramps had deliberately set out to find the doe and fawn, he had shown wonderful woodcraft. Never once had he faltered or been at a loss as to the route to follow. He had known exactly where to find the doe and her baby.