146 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



startled, does not often stop to look round; but, as 

 already said, the former will generally do so after 

 having gone a few hundred feet. The first black- 

 tail I ever killed unfortunately killed, for the body 

 was not found until spoiled was obtained owing 

 solely to this peculiarity. I had been riding up 

 along the side of a brushy coulie, when a fine buck 

 started out some thirty yards ahead. Although so 

 close, my first shot, a running one, was a miss; 

 when a couple of hundred yards off, on the very 

 crest of the spur up which he had run, he stopped 

 and turned partially round. Firing again from a 

 rest, the bullet broke his hind leg far up and went 

 into his body. Off he went on three legs, and I after 

 him as fast as the horse could gallop. He went over 

 the spur and down into the valley of the creek 

 from which the coulie branched up, in very bad 

 ground. 



My pony was neither fast nor surefooted, but of 

 course in half a mile overhauled the three-legged 

 deer, which turned short off and over the side of the 

 hill flanking the valley. Instead of running right up 

 on it I foolishly dismounted and began firing; after 

 the first shot a miss it got behind a bowlder hith- 

 erto unseen, and thence over the crest. The pony 

 meanwhile had slipped its hind leg into the rein; 

 when, after some time, I got it out and galloped up 

 to the ridge, the most careful scrutiny of which my 

 unpracticed eyes were capable failed to discover a 

 track on the dry ground, hard as granite. A day 

 or two afterward the place where the carcass lay 



