230 Deer of the Pacific Coast 



cause ; because the numbers that remain are very 

 great, and they fare as well and keep as fat as 

 those that go away. In some places, as in south- 

 western Oregon, the number remaining is plainly 

 greater than those that depart, and the hunting 

 is better there than in the Cascades to which the 

 others have gone. When they return and unite 

 with those that have stayed, their numbers are 

 often very great, and on snow it is very easy to 

 kill several in a day. It is under such conditions 

 that the mighty hunters of Oregon do much of 

 their work. It is mainly by loafing along the 

 trail during the migration that " Old Bill " So-and- 

 so kills three hundred a year. And " Old Pete " 

 What-you-call-him goes a hundred or more better 

 by following them to the coast, where he used 

 often to make his winter camp and slaughter deer 

 solely for the skins. As much of the migration 

 is during the rutting time, when the bucks are 

 more careless than usual, it is an easy matter for 

 one with the patience to sit on a log and wait, 

 to kill plenty of game by simply knowing the 

 lines of migration. And these they often narrow 

 up with a brush fence, along which the deer wan- 

 der far if undisturbed rather than leap it. Here 

 at an opening the butcher is often placed on a 

 scaffold ; and the world thinks him a mighty hun- 

 ter because he kills so many, a wondrous shot 

 because he does it with the old-fashioned Win- 



