The IVhitetail Deer. 49 



very plentiful round this camp ; before sunrise and after 

 sundown they called unceasingly. 



Next day I took a long tramp and climb after 

 mountain sheep and missed a running shot at a fine ram, 

 about a hundred yards off; or rather I hit him and followed 

 his bloody trail a couple of miles, but failed to find him ; 

 whereat I returned to camp much cast down. 



Early the following morning Sylvane and I started for 

 another hunt, this time on horseback. The air was crisp 

 and pleasant ; the beams of the just-risen sun struck 

 sharply on the umber-colored hills and white cliff walls 

 guarding the river, bringing into high relief their strangely 

 carved and channelled fronts. Below camp the river was 

 little but a succession of shallow pools strune alone the 

 broad sandy bed which in spring-time was filled from 

 bank to bank with foaming muddy water. Two mallards 

 sat in one of these pools ; and I hit one with the rifle, so 

 nearly missing that the ball scarcely rufl^ed a feather ; yet 

 in some way the shock told, for the bird after flying 

 thirty yards dropped on the sand. 



Then we left the river and our active ponies scrambled 

 up a small canyon-like break in the bluffs. All day we 

 rode among the hills ; sometimes across rounded slopes, 

 matted with short buffalo erass ; sometimes over barren 

 buttes of red or white clay, where only sage brush and 

 cactus grew ; or beside deep ravines, black with stunted 

 cedar; oralono- beautiful windingf coulies, where the erass 

 grew rankly, and the thickets of ash and wild plum made 

 brilliant splashes of red and yellow and tender green. 

 Yet we saw nothing. 



