IN THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS. 99 



would give him his liberty and take their scalps instead. But 

 he heeded not my promise and kept on down the canyon. 

 Here a new danger presented itself to my mind. The snow 

 even here in the canyon was much lighter than on the moun- 

 tains, and so light in places that it was difficult to follow the 

 trail, and I knew that a short distance down the canyon it 

 opened out into the Big Horn Valley, which was an open 

 prairie and entirely below the snow-line. 



And the wily buck seemed to understand this fact as well 

 as I, for without further ado he headed straight down the 

 canyon. I followed briskly, hoping to get within sight of 

 him and obtain a shot before he should get beyond the snow. 

 As I emerged from the timber and looked out upon the dry, 

 hard ground of the prairie in the valley, my heart sank within 

 me, for I thought after all my toil, my tramping, climbing, 

 wading and crawling, I was outwitted and left. But placing 

 my field-glass to my eyes and scanning the ground closely I 

 saw a gray bunch of something with a white spot at one end 

 of it, closely ensconced under a cluster of greasewood. I 

 examined it closely and carefully, and finally satisfied myself 

 that it was my buck. By changing my position slightly I 

 could plainly distinguish his antlers. His head lay flat upon 

 the ground, as if dead, and his tongue protruded to almost 

 its full length. Knowing that I could not track him on the 

 dry, hard prairie he had gone far enough from the snow 

 to be, as he thought, safe, and, concealing himself under this 

 clump of bushes, doubtless considered himself beyond all 

 possibility of discovery. Indeed, I probably never should 

 have found him without the aid of a field-glass. 



He was about eight hundred yards from where I stood, 

 but I knew that I could get an easy shot at him as he was off 

 his guard, so I stepped down the side of the hill until I got a 

 low ridge between him and myself, when I crept cautiously to 



