134 The Black-Tail Deer, 



ties combine to make it less able to hold its own against 

 mankind than its smaller rival. It is the favorite game of the 

 skin hunters and meat hunters, and has, in consequence, 

 already disappeared from many places, while in others its 

 extermination is going on at a frightfully rapid rate, ow- 

 ing to its being followed in season and out of season 

 without mercy. Besides, the cattle are very fond of just 

 the places to which it most often resorts ; and wherever 

 cattle go the cowboys ride about after them, with their 

 ready six-shooters at their hips. They blaze away at 

 any deer they see, of course, and in addition to now and 

 then killing or wounding one, continually harry and dis- 

 turb the poor animals. In the more remote and inacces- 

 sible districts the black-tail will long hold its own, to be 

 one of the animals whose successful pursuit will redound 

 most to the glory of the still-hunter ; but in a very few 

 years it will have ceased entirely to be one of the com- 

 mon game animals of the plains. 



Its great curiosity is one of the disadvantages under 

 which it labors in the fierce struggle for existence, com- 

 pared to the white-tail. The latter, when startled, does 

 not often stop to look round ; but, as already said, the 

 former will generally do so after having gone a few hun- 

 dred feet. The first black-tail I ever killed unfortunately 

 killed, for the body was not found until spoiled was ob- 

 tained owing solely to this peculiarity. I had been riding 

 up along the side of a brushy coulie, when a fine buck 

 started out some thirty yards ahead. Although so close, 

 my first shot, a running one, was a miss ; when a couple 

 of hundred yards off, on the very crest of the spur up 



