The Columbia Blacktail 241 



rience with the Virginia deer. In a little valley 

 of a few acres in the wildest part of the Coast 

 Range of Oregon we camped at noon, and two of 

 our party went out to shoot some mountain-quail 

 which were running about in all directions in 

 great numbers. One had a shotgun and the 

 other a twenty-two rifle, with which they fired 

 fully thirty shots, besides making a great amount 

 of noise. For an hour before that our party of 

 four had been making the usual noise incidental 

 to stopping to camp and get dinner. After din- 

 ner I set out for the woods with my rifle, passing 

 within twenty feet of a clump of brush some fifty 

 feet in diameter. The brush was thin and stood 

 alone well out in the valley, the rest of which was 

 covered with grass. My two companions had 

 been shooting all around it. After I was well 

 past it, a large doe bounded out of it in full sight 

 of all of us, and vanished like an arrow in the 

 dense timber on the side. As we were many a 

 league beyond the last sign of man, fresh or old, 

 it was not likely that that deer had ever known 

 much of the ways of man. 



A "slow-tracking" dog, or bird dog trained to 

 point deer the same as birds, is the only thing 

 you can rely on in still-hunting to find a skulking 

 deer. For if the ground is such that you can 

 follow the trail yourself, they will often sneak 

 quietly around, if the brush is large enough in 



