Chapter 14

ANTLERS



Although Nimble had lost his horns he managed to go through the winter without missing them as much as he had expected. And in time he had almost forgotten the pair of spikes that he had worn on his head the summer before. Then, one day, he made a great discovery. He found that new horns were sprouting to take the place of those that he had lost!

"Now I can have some mock battles again--when my horns get long enough," he thought. And then he stopped short. What if the Spike Horns of the year before had no more horns? If they were hornless they certainly wouldn't care to take part in any mock battles.

Nimble's fears were soon set at rest. His old playmates soon let him know that they were all going to have new horns too.

And then, a little later, Nimble made another great discovery. He was looking into a pool one morning when he saw something that gave him huge delight. His new horns were not like last year's horns. He beheld, mirrored in the water, a handsome pair of Y-shaped antlers, each with two points!

"Hurrah!" he cried. "I'll make those Spike Horns feel like hiding themselves again."

He had expected to have a pleasant time showing his new antlers to his old friends. When he met Dodger the Deer, Nimble called to him: "See what I've got! Antlers! Two points!"

"Ho!" said Dodger. "So have I got antlers. And they have two points, too."

Nimble had been so interested in his own horns that he hadn't looked at Dodger's. And now when he gazed at them he saw that they were like his.

"What about the rest of the Spike Horns?" Nimble asked Dodger. "Have they----"

"Yes, they have!" Dodger interrupted. "I tell you, 'two-pointers' are common this season."

"So there aren't any more Spike Horns!" said Nimble somewhat sadly.

"Oh, yes! Plenty!" Dodger answered. "But they're an entirely new crop. They were fawns last year."

When he heard that bit of news Nimble felt happier. And as soon as he parted from Dodger the Deer he went and found some of the new Spike Horns and showed them his wonderful two-point antlers.

But somehow they didn't seem at all impressed. They were too much taken up with their own spikes to pay any attention to Nimble.

"Anyhow," he said to himself, "we 'two-pointers' can have some good mock battles together."

And they did. They had mock battles that became famous all around Blue Mountain. And of all the "two-pointers" that lived in that neighborhood, Nimble and his friend Dodger the Deer were known as the best sham-fighters. They could look fiercer and act angrier than any of their young friends. And the way they tore into each other was almost enough to frighten you, if you had