Deer of the River Bottoms. l *1 



Manitou, stands as steady as a rock, yet I find it im- 

 possible to shoot the rifle with any degree of accuracy 

 from the saddle. 



Except on such occasions as those just mentioned, 

 the white-tail is rarely killed while hunting on horse- 

 back. This last term, by-the-way, must not be under- 

 stood in the sense in which it would be taken by the 

 fox-hunter of the South, or by the Calif ornian and Texan 

 horsemen who course hare, antelope, and wild turkey 

 with their fleet greyhounds. With us hunting on horse- 

 back simply means that the horse is ridden not only to 

 the hunting grounds, but also through them, until the 

 game is discovered ; then the hunter immediately dis- 

 mounts, shooting at once if the animal is near enough 

 and has seen him, or stalking up to it on foot if 

 it is a good distance off and he is still unobserved. 

 Where great stretches of country have to be covered, 

 as in antelope shooting, hunting on horseback is almost 

 the only way followed ; but the haunts and habits of 

 the white-tail deer render it nearly useless to try to kill 

 them in this way, as the horse would be sure to alarm 

 them by making a noise, and even if he did not there 

 would hardly be time to dismount and take a snap shot. 

 Only once have I ever killed a white-tail buck while hunt- 

 ing on horseback ; and at that time I had been expect- 

 ing to fall in with black-tail. 



This was while we had been making a wagon trip to 

 the westward, following the old Keogh trail, which was 

 made by the heavy army wagons that journeyed to Fort 

 Keogh in the old days when the soldiers were, except a 



