166 T'he Black-Tail Deer. 



out of sight ; and with no light but that of the stars, we 

 let our horses thread their own way up the creek bottom. 

 When we had gone a couple of miles from the river the 

 sky in front of our faces took on a faint grayish tinge, the 

 forerunner of dawn. Every now and then we passed by 

 bunches of cattle, lying down or standing huddled together 

 in the patches of brush or under the lee of some shelving 

 bank or other wind-break ; and as the eastern heavens grew 

 brighter, a dark form suddenly appeared against the sky- 

 line, on the crest of a bluff directly ahead of us. Another 

 and another came up beside it. A glance told us that it 

 was a troop of ponies, which stood motionless, like so many 

 silhouettes, their outstretched necks and long tails vividly 

 outlined against the light behind them. All in the valley 

 was yet dark when we reached the place where the creek 

 began to split up and branch out into the various arms 

 and ravines from which it headed. We galloped smartly 

 over the divide into a set of coulies and valleys which ran 

 into a different creek, and selected a grassy place where 

 there was good feed to leave the horses. My companion 

 picketed his ; Manitou needed no picketing. 



The tops of the hills were growing rosy, but the sun was 

 not yet above the horizon when we started off, with our 

 rifles on our shoulders, walking in cautious silence, for we 

 were in good ground and might at any moment see a deer. 

 Above us was a plateau of some size, breaking off sharply 

 at the rim into a surrounding stretch of very rough and 

 rugged country. It sent off low spurs with notched crests 

 into the valleys round about, and its edges were indented 

 with steep ravines and half-circular basins, their sides cov- 



