CHAPTER IV. 



THE DEER OF THE RIVER BOTTOMS. 



F all the large game of the 

 United States, the white-tail 

 deer is the best known and 

 the most widely distributed. 

 Taking the Union as a whole, 

 fully ten men will be found who 

 have killed white-tail for one who has 

 killed any other kind of large game. 

 And it is the only ruminant animal which 

 is able to live on in the land even when it has been pretty 

 thickly settled. There is hardly a State wherein it does 

 not still exist, at least in some out-of-the-way corner ; and 

 long after the elk and the buffalo have passed away, and 

 when the big-horn and prong-horn have become rare 

 indeed, the white-tail deer will still be common in certain 

 parts of the country. 



When, less than five years ago, cattle were first driven 

 on to the northern plains, the white-tail were the least 

 plentiful and the least sought after of all the large game ; 



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