The Black-Tail Deer. 165 



mere life is enjoyment ; and on days such as these, the 

 life of a hunter is at its pleasantest and best. 



Many black-tail are sometimes killed in a day. I have 

 never made big bags myself, for I rarely hunt except for a 

 fine head or when we need meat, and if it can be avoided 

 do not shoot at fawns or does ; so the greatest number I 

 have ever killed in a day was three. This was late one 

 November, on an occasion when our larder was running 

 low. My foreman and I, upon discovering this fact, de- 

 termined to make a trip next day back in the broken 

 country, away from the river, where black-tail were almost 

 sure to be found. 



We breakfasted hours before sunrise, and then mounted 

 our horses and rode up the river bottom. The bright 

 prairie moon was at the full, and was sunk in the west till it 

 hung like a globe of white fire over the long row of jagged 

 bluffs that rose from across the river, while its beams 

 brought into fantastic relief the peaks and crests of the 

 buttes upon our left. The valley of the river itself was in 

 partial darkness, and the stiff, twisted branches of the sage- 

 brush seemed to take on uncanny shapes as they stood in 

 the hollows. The cold was stinging, and we let our willing 

 horses gallop with loose reins, their hoofs ringing on the 

 frozen ground. After going up a mile or two along the 

 course of the river we turned off to follow the bed of a 

 large dry creek. At its mouth was a great space of 

 ground much cut up by the hoofs of the cattle, which was 

 in summer overflowed and almost a morass ; but now the 

 frost-bound earth was like wrinkled iron beneath the 

 horses' feet. Behind us the westering moon sank down 



