Now the truth is, the stranger was not a coward.  He was ready and willing to fight if he had to, but if he could avoid fighting he meant to.  You see, big as he was, he wasn’t quite so big as Lightfoot, and he knew it.  He had seen Lightfoot’s big footprints, and from their size he knew that Lightfoot must be bigger and heavier than he.  Then, too, he knew that he really had no right to be there in the Green Forest.  That was Lightfoot’s home and so he was an intruder.  He knew that Lightfoot would feel this way about it and that this would make him fight all the harder.  So the big stranger wanted to avoid a fight if possible.  But he wanted still more to find that beautiful young visitor with the dainty feet for whom Lightfoot had been looking.  He wanted to find her just as Lightfoot wanted to find her, and he hoped that if he did find her, he could take her away with him back to the Great Mountain.  If he had to, he would fight for her, but until he had to he would keep out of the fight.  So he dodged Lightfoot and at the same time looked for the beautiful stranger.

All this Sammy Jay guessed, and after a while he grew tired of following Lightfoot for nothing.  “I’ll have to take a hand in this thing myself,” muttered Sammy.  “At this rate, Lightfoot never will find that big stranger!”

So Sammy stopped following Lightfoot and began to search through the Green Forest for the big stranger.  It didn’t take very long to find him.  He was over near the pond of Paddy the Beaver.  As soon as he saw him, Sammy began to scream at the top of his lungs.  At once he heard the sound of snapping twigs at the top of a little ridge back of Paddy’s pond and knew that Lightfoot had heard and understood.

CHAPTER XXXVII:  The Great Fight

Down from the top of the ridge back of the pond of Paddy the Beaver plunged Lightfoot the Deer, his eyes blazing with rage.  He had understood the screaming of Sammy Jay.  He knew that somewhere down there was the big stranger he had been looking for.

The big stranger had understood Sammy’s screaming quite as well as Lightfoot.  He knew that to run away now would be to prove himself a coward and forever disgrace himself in the eyes of Miss Daintyfoot, for that was the name of the beautiful stranger he had been seeking.  He must fight.  There was no way out of it, he must fight.  The hair on the back of his neck stood up with anger just as did the hair on the neck of Lightfoot.  His eyes also blazed.  He bounded out into a little open place by the pond of Paddy the Beaver and there he waited.