Chapter 9

A SPIKE HORN



Nimble didn't mind losing his spots, when he grew older. He had something else that gave him much more pleasure than they ever had. He had a new toy. Or to be exact, he had two new toys. And everywhere he went he carried them with him.

He carried them on his head. And he couldn't have left them behind in the woods even if he had wanted to--at least not until he had enjoyed them for a whole season.

Of course you have already guessed that he had a pair of horns. They were not very big. But neither was Nimble, for that matter. So they suited him well. A little deer like him would have looked queer wearing great branching horns such as his father owned.

Nimble's horns were merely two spikes which stuck up out of the top of his head in a pert fashion.

It was a proud day for him when an old deer spoke to him and called him "young Spike Horn." About that time the forest folk had begun to speak of him as a "yearling." But there was something about "Spike Horn" that sounded much more important.

Somehow there was a new crop of Spike Horns that summer--Nimble's second summer. And every one of them had been--like him--a little spotted fawn the year before.

At first Nimble had thought it fun to use his new horns to jab anybody that happened to be with him. One day he even stole up behind his own mother and gave her a sharp prod with them.

He never did that again. His mother quickly taught him better. She wheeled and struck him smartly with her fore feet.

"There!" she cried. "That's the first time a child of mine has played that trick on me.... Let it be the last!"

And it was. Nimble was very careful, after that, to prod only those that didn't mind such pranks.

Luckily he soon found that the other Spike Horns liked the same sort of fun that he did. They were just as proud of their new horns as he was of his. And (sad to say!) there was a good deal of boasting among them. Each one declared that his own horns were the longest and strongest.

All the Spike Horns, including Nimble, were forever butting one another in play. And they had just discovered a new sport when Nimble met with what he feared, for a time, was a terrible accident.

Late in the fall, before the deep snows came, both his horns loosened and dropped off his head.

"Oh! oh!" he cried when he saw what had happened. "I'll never be able to take part in another mock battle again!" For the Spike Horns had had gay times pretending to fight one another in a most savage fashion.

After Nimble lost his horns he carefully avoided all his playmates. He didn't want the other Spike Horns to see him. At last, to his great dismay, one day he came face to face with one of them. They both tried to dodge out of sight. But the other, whose name was