Hunting from the Ranch. 35 



carried it down to where we had left the horses ; and then 

 we loped homewards, bending to the cold slanting rain. 

 Although in places where it is much persecuted the 

 blacktail is a shy and wary beast, the successful pursuit of 

 which taxes to the uttermost the skill and energy of the 

 hunter, yet, like the elk, if little molested it often shows 

 astonishing tameness and even stupidity. In the Rockies 

 I have sometimes come on blacktail within a very short 

 distance, which would merely stare at me, then trot off a 

 few yards, turn and stare again, and wait for several min- 

 utes before really taking alarm. What is much more 

 extraordinary I have had the same thing happen to me in 

 certain little hunted localities in the neighborhood of my 

 ranch, even of recent years. In the fall of 1890 I was 

 riding down a canyon-coulie with my foreman, Sylvane 

 Ferris, and a young friend from Boston, when we almost 

 rode over a barren blacktail doe. She only ran some fifty 

 yards, round a corner of the coulie, and then turned and 

 stood until we ran forward and killed her — for we were 

 in need of fresh meat. One October, a couple of years 

 before this, my cousin. West Roosevelt, and I took a trip 

 with the wagon to a very wild and rugged country, some 

 twenty miles from the ranch. We found that the deer 

 had evidently been but little disturbed. One day while 

 scrambling down a steep, brushy hill, leading my horse, I 

 came close on a doe and fawn ; they merely looked at me 

 with curiosity for some time, and then sauntered slowly 

 off, remaining within shot for at least five minutes. For- 

 tunately we had plenty of meat at the time, and there was 

 no necessity to harm the graceful creatures. A few days 



