He had stolen very softly clown to the Laughing Brook , hoping to surprise the beautiful stranger drinking there . She was n't to be seen . Lightfoot wondered if she had been there , so looked in the mud at the edge of the Laughing Brook to see if there were any fresh prints of those dainty feet . Almost at once he discovered fresh footprints . They were not the prints he was looking for . No , Sir , they were not the dainty prints he had learned to know so well . They were prints very near the size of his own big ones , and they had been made only a short time before . The finding of those prints was a dreadful shock to Lightfoot . He understood instantly what they meant . They meant that a second stranger had come into the Green Forest , one who had antlers like his own . Jealousy took possession of Lightfoot the Deer ; jealousy that filled his heart with rage . `` He has come here to seek that beautiful stranger I have been hunting for , '' thought Lightfoot . `` He has come here to try to steal her away from me . He has no right here in my Green Forest . He belongs back up on the Great Mountain from which he must have come , for there is no other place he could have come from . That is where that beautiful stranger must have come from , too . I want her to stay , but I must drive this fellow out . I 'll make him fight . That 's what I 'll do ; I 'll make him fight ! I 'm not afraid of him , but I 'll make him fear me . ''
XXXXX stamped his feet and with his great antlers thrashed the bushes as if he felt that they were the enemy he sought .
Brook Forest Lightfoot Mountain antlers footprints right second shock stranger