TRACKS AND TRACKING 



Four or five jumps after the shot was fired he 

 stopped behind some trees, which prevented 

 another shot. He remained hidden a few seconds, 

 then trotted about thirty yards and stopped 

 again; finally he trotted off, directly away from 

 me, and if ever I would have sworn that a deer 

 was missed, I would have done so then. 



However, force of habit compelled me to fol- 

 low the trail, and about two hundred yards from 

 where he stopped last, the buck lay stone dead. 

 The bullet, a steel- jacketed .30 U. S., had pene- 

 trated the heart squarely, and made a hole the 

 size of a quarter. There was not a drop of blood 

 along the trail. Moral: Follow the deer, even 

 if you think you have missed. 



A deer shot through the lungs usually goes 

 off, after the first jump, as if nothing had hap- 

 pened to it. There is no variance in its trail from 

 that of an uninjured deer, but alongside the trail 

 there is in every case the story of where the bul- 

 let hit, in the shape of foamy, light-colored blood. 

 This trail, too, may be followed immediately. 



A liver shot is, perhaps, the least satisfactory 

 of any. Sometimes the deer on being shot 



