CHAPTER XI. 



A GRAND DAY'S SPORT. 



AN EXCITING CHASE A LEAP FOR LIFE ALL A MAN WANTS IS 

 "SAND" OVER THE MOUNTAIN WALL THE CHASE GROWS 

 INTERESTING ANOTHER LEAP FOR LIFE I FOLLOW MY LEADER 

 RUN TO COVER AT LAST I DRINK TO THE MEMORY OF THE 

 DEPARTED MORE SPORT OLD PLANTIGRADE AND HER CUBS 

 LOADED FOR BEAR THE WHOLE FAMILY KILLED HOME TO CAMP. 



THE first signs of sport I saw as I journeyed forth alone 

 were those of half a dozen mule deer, commonly (but erro- 

 neously) called on the frontier, black-tail deer. The tracks 

 showed that the deer had been ranging about leisurely feeding. 

 I selected the track of the largest buck, and, following it 

 perhaps half a mile, jumped him, but in thick brush so that I 

 failed to get a shot. He bounded away through the thicket 

 and broke cover at a distance of half a mile from me. As he 

 passed over an open ridge I saw that he was a remarkably 

 large, fine buck, and that his capture would well repay a long 

 and arduous chase. I had often heard it asserted that a 

 hunter who possessed sufficient power of endurance, enthu- 

 siasm and "sand" could run a deer down; that the largest 

 and strongest of the species would not run more than twenty 

 to thirty miles until he would become so exhausted that he 

 would lag, lie down, and thus give the hunter an easy oppor- 

 tunity to approach and kill him. 



I stopped and contemplated the chances of such an 

 undertaking. A stern chase is always a long chase, and when 

 the slow and steady stride of a man is matched against the 

 fleet-footed bound of the wild and wary stag it must indeed 



