Part II

You are going to read an extract from a novel. Six paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A-G the one which fits each gap (1-6). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

Chance encounter

I ease behind a slender tree trunk, then hold an opened palm toward my dog Keta. In our silent language it means 'lie down and stay'. She obeys. A few minutes later the deer steps into plain sight, and leans down to graze, nuzzling back and forth amid the lush grass. So exquisite is she that it takes a supreme act of self-control to keep myself from jumping up and shouting aloud.

[1] ____ I turn to look into Keta's eyes. Firmly now, I point to a low spot behind the little hillock where we stand. She folds back her ears and walks away, stopping several times to face me, sad-eyed and pleading, but obedient. When I give the signal, she lies down. I start toward the deer, always closely watching to be sure she's busy feeding, so the sound of her picking and chewing will mask the unavoidable crunch of my boot steps.

[2] ___ Perhaps it's because I haven't brought a rifle, not even for protection against stumbling into a bear. I've come here to hunt only with my eyes, and to marvel at this graceful creature. I wonder if hawks and herons, wolves and killer whales are ever astounded by the loveliness, grace and perfection of their prey.

[3] ____ I turn from her gaze and view the landscape it encompasses: the green tangle at her feet; the forest that shelters her from rain, wind and snow: the dense thickets that shade and conceal her; nearby shore, where kelp left by winter storms sustains her through the lean months; and tundra heights where she finds seclusion in the long summer days.

[4] _____ I know immediately that Keta must have forgotten her instructions or chosen to ignore them. Sure enough, she's on the move: she's zigzagging excitedly, weaving herself through streamers of scent, still trying to spot the deer beyond the pine The deer breaks into a stylized mechanical stiff heading up the slope toward a scatter of trees a» underbrush. There's nothing to lose, so I imitate the soft, sheeplike bleat of a young deer.

[5] _____ The call keeps her from dashing off but can't ea: her alarm. She moves slowly and silently. She looks at us repeatedly, but seems less trusting of her eyes than of the telling evidence a different sense w give her. I know exactly what she's trying to do and vainly wish for a way to change it.

[6] ____ For a brief moment I had felt that we were more alike than different, and that I had known an understood her. But in the vast quiet she leaves behind, I am quite overwhelmed by the sense of distance between our two worlds.

A. But now, looking back at the deer, I find that something has gone awry. She's standing in a rigid pose: head raised, ears wide, body tense. What could have frightened her, since I haven't moved, haven't given a hint of my presence? Then I realise she isn't looking at me at all, but past me, and I hear a shuffle in the grass.

B. But like Keta, I hold a tenuous grip on myself, standing still in the warm breeze, holding my binoculars to my eyes. The deer is unaware of us, contentedly plucking at the undergrowth. Her eyes move this way and that as she feeds, revealing the white crescents at their edges.

C. Keta's behaviour telegraphs the scent's increasing strength: she moves forward, catches herself and looks back, like someone pacing at a line she's been warned not to cross. She probes her nose into the breeze, occasionally reaching to the side for a stronger ribbon of scent.

D. As if in answer to my question, she lifts her elegant head and looks toward me. I stare back through my binoculars. Her globed eyes stand out from her face so she can look forward along her snout. The morning sky reflects on their dark surface the way clouds shimmer on still water.

E. She stops immediately ... then turns and steps deliberately back toward us, as if I were pulling a line attached to her neck. She's caught by an insuppressible curiosity, yet I can almost feel the quavering intensity of her fear.

F. She lifts her snout into the air, and picks up our scent. With utmost dignity she raises one foreleg and slowly turns aside. Then she bounds to the crest of the slope, springs over a fallen log, and vanishes into the forest, as if on a cloud of her own breath.

G. I know myself as a predator. And considering how I've stalked this animal — slipped through the boundaries of her solitude, hidden my shape, and used the wind to conceal my footsteps - I wonder that I can feel so innocent.