EARLY DAY STORIES. 97 



where they are acquainted with the white man and his long 

 range guns, he is pretty apt to come home gameless. 



One fall I was hunting in Garfield county and was 

 camped in the sand hill country in a big thicket of willows 

 at the very head of a little creek, a tributary of Cedar river. 

 The weather had been cold, somewhat stormy and unpleas- 

 ant, and we had been having poor luck, having succeeded in 

 killing but one deer, and having found no fresh signs of elk. 

 There had been five or six inches of snow on the ground 

 which had thawed and settled down considerably, but it was 

 still a pretty good tracking snow. I struck out early one 

 very cold morning, the mercury, I should think, being down 

 to zero, but there was no wind, and as walking is good ex- 

 ercise there was no difficulty in keeping warm. After a 

 mile or two of travel I struck a fresh deer's track and fol- 

 lowing it cautiously soon started a fine white-tail doe. She 

 was lying down among some little sand hummocks, and al- 

 though she was not more than fifty yards away, I was not 

 quick enough to get a shot before she was out of reach. 

 Probably I followed the track for five miles before coming 

 up with the deer again, but this time she was on the lookout, 

 and saw me before I was near enough to shoot. I gave it 

 up, and as the chase had led away from camp, I faced about 

 and took a direction that would lead partly toward camp. 

 Coming to the edge of a little sand hill valley covered with 

 tall grass, I struck two fresh deer's tracks that were leading 

 up the valley and directly toward camp. Taking a careful 

 look with the glass, I saw the two deer about a mile away 

 near the head of the valley, and just at the edge of the tall 

 grass. This was my chance. When two deer are found 

 together ,there is a good chance to get both, provided the 

 first one shot at is killed on the spot. The other deer will 

 then nearly always give a few bounds, turn broadside and 

 look back for his mate; this gives a splendid shot at the 

 second deer. If there are more than two deer together and 



