The Whitetail Deer. 39 



deep forests ; and at last perchance the excitement of 

 a shot at a buck, standing at gaze, with luminous eye- 

 balls. 



The most common method of killing the whitetail is 

 by hounding ; that is, by driving it with hounds past run- 

 ways where hunters are stationed — for all wild animals 

 when on the move prefer to follow certain definite routes. 

 This is a legitimate, but inferior, kind of sport. 



However, even killing driven deer may be good fun at 

 certain times. Most of the whitetail we kill round the 

 ranch are obtained in this fashion. On the Little Missouri 

 — as throughout the plains country generally — these deer 

 cling to the big wooded river bottoms, while the blacktail 

 are found in the broken country back from the river. The 

 tangled mass of cottonwoods, box-alders, and thorny bull- 

 berry bushes which cover the bottoms afford the deer a 

 nearly secure shelter from the still-hunter ; and it is only 

 by the aid of hounds that they can be driven from their 

 wooded fastnesses. They hold their own better than any 

 other game. The great herds of buffalo, and the bands 

 of elk, have vanished completely ; the swarms of antelope 

 and blacktail have been wofully thinned ; but the white- 

 tail, which were never found in such throngs as either 

 buffalo or elk, blacktail or antelope, have suffered far less 

 from the advent of the white hunters, ranchmen, and set- 

 tlers. They are of course not as plentiful as formerly ; but 

 some are still to be found in almost all their old haunts. 

 Where the river, winding between rows of high buttes, 

 passes my ranch house, there is a long succession of 

 heavily wooded bottoms ; and on all of these, even on the 



