IN THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS. 79 



the spot by the noise, to take the game into camp. I found 

 deer signs very plentiful in the fresh snow, but didn't follow 

 any particular trail, as I felt confident of finding game as 

 soon by keeping straight ahead as by trailing. 



I had walked perhaps two miles, when, as I was passing 

 over a low ridge, three deer jumped from their beds in some 

 hazel brush at my right and started across an open swale 

 toward the heavy timber, which was about two hundred yards 

 away. The deer were about a hundred yards from me when 

 I first saw them. I paid my compliments to an old buck 

 first, then to a yearling buck, and as these two went to grass 

 in short order, the third, a handsome doe, stopped broadside 

 to me to wait for her companions. I dropped on my knee to 

 make sure of her, but in the excitement of the moment forgot 

 to make any allowance for the fact that she was seventy or 

 eighty yards farther away than the others when I shot at 

 them, and, firing without any elevation, had the gloomy satis- 

 faction of seeing the snow fly just beyond her in a position 

 that told me at once my ball had dropped below her. In a 

 second more she was out of sight in the thick brush. 



I then went to where the old buck was when I first fired 

 and saw hair scattered over the snow in every direction, some 

 of it ten feet away. I glanced eagerly along his trail, and 

 where he lit on the first jump after the ball struck him I saw 

 blood. At the second jump a perfect shower of blood had 

 been blown from his nostrils, crimsoning the snow on both 

 sides of his trail, while a stream had also spurted from the 

 wound. 



"That settles it," thought I. "Through the lungs and 

 he can't go far." 



I moved eagerly forward, but before I had gone a dozen 

 steps I fairly stumbled over his lifeless body, where it lay all 

 doubled up in a clump of thick bushes. I then retraced 



