The Deer of the River Bottoms 113 



they make long trips back among the hills. The 

 same is rapidly getting to be true of the Little Mis- 

 souri. This is partly because the skin and meat 

 hunters find the chase of this deer to be the most 

 tedious and least remunerative species of hunting, 

 and therefore only turn their attention to it when 

 there is nothing else left to hunt, and partly because 

 the sheep and cattle and the herdsmen who follow 

 them are less likely to trespass on their grounds 

 than on the grounds of other game. The white- 

 tail is the deer of the river bottoms and of the large 

 creeks, whose beds contain plenty of brush and tim- 

 ber running down into them. It prefers the densest 

 cover, in which it lies hid all day, and it is especially 

 fond of wet, swampy places, where a horse runs 

 the risk of being engulfed. Thus it is very rarely 

 jumped by accident, and when the cattle stray into 

 its haunts, which is but seldom, the cowboys are 

 not apt to follow them. Besides, unlike most other 

 game, it has no aversion to the presence of cattle, 

 and in the morning and evening will come out and 

 feed freely among them. 



This last habit was the cause of our getting a 

 fine buck a few days before last Christmas. The 

 weather was bitterly cold, the spirit in the ther- 

 mometer sometimes going down at night to 50 

 below zero and never for over a fortnight getting 

 above 10 (Fahrenheit). Snow covered the 

 ground, to the depth, however, of but a few inches, 

 for in the cattle country the snowfall is always 

 light. When the cold is so great it is far from 



