WHERE SPRING COMES LATE 23 



most desired, but a deer stalk, even with the 

 kodak, is worth the effort. It is fully half an 

 hour before the feat is accomplished, and the 

 desired spot down wind is reached ; but where is 

 the black-tail? It is necessary now, to look 

 against the scrub, rather than into it as from the 

 former view, across the ravine; and Xature has 

 designed black-tail coats to harmonize with just 

 such scrubby surroundings. Slowly, quietly the 

 hillside is traversed up wind, right out to the 

 more open scrub, and nothing is seen other than 

 some fresh tracks, till with a bound, the deer, a 

 big doe, bounces out of somewhere, at a scant 

 thirty paces distant. 



One bounce — what word can just describe the 

 start of a mule deer — and she stops, turns her 

 high head, and flicks her big ears. Then, oh! for 

 a lens that in such weak light could see through 

 that dim scrub, and — from almost at her side 

 another, a yearling, clears the scrub, and to- 

 gether they go off down hill, with that effort- 

 less, stifflegged, bouncing gait, possessed by 

 no other animal. They bounce high, seem to 

 hover in the air a moment before they sink, 

 and appear to be rising and falling in their 

 tracks — until you measure the jumps. Twice 



