Old Times in the Black Hills 
stock. I considered this the best all-round 
sporting-rifle I had ever owned. I was three 
hundred miles from a gunsmith, virtually un- 
armed, and carrying my life in my hand. 
An examination of the dead buck proved 
him indeed a grand specimen. He had eight 
points to each antler, and their condition and 
his numerous scars proved conclusively that 
he had ever been willing to defend his title as 
monarch of the woods. I never would have 
believed that any deer could attain so large 
a size, and though I have hunted them from 
Arizona to Montana, I have never seen his 
equal either as to size or condition. This 
fact determined me to carry him into camp 
whole; in fact, I had no other alternative, 
being without a knife. I found the task of 
cutting his throat with sharp pieces of slate a 
tedious one indeed, and I had a terrible time 
getting the carcass on “Coffee,” who, al- 
though the best packhorse I ever saw, had 
never overcome his horror of a dead animal, 
and did not even relish the rabbits I had 
strapped on him at noon. It may seem a 
simple thing, but I found loading that buck 
without assistance one of the hardest tasks I 
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