148 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



let had gone into his hip, paralyzing his hind-quar- 

 ters. The antlers are the finest pair I ever got, and 

 form a magnificent ornament for the hall; but the 

 shooting is hardly to be recalled with pleasure. Still, 

 though certainly very bad, it was not quite as dis- 

 creditable as the mere target shot would think. I 

 have seen many a crack marksman at the target do 

 quite as bad missing when out in the field, and that 

 not once, but again and again. 



Of course, in those parts of the wilderness where 

 the black-tail are entirely unused to man, they are as 

 easy to approach (from the leeward side) as is any 

 and every other kind of game under like conditions. 

 In lonely spots, to which hunters rarely or never 

 penetrate, deer of this species will stand and look at a 

 hunter without offering to run away till he is within 

 fifty yards of them, if he will advance quietly. In 

 a far-off mountain forest I have more than once 

 shot a young buck at less than that distance as he 

 stood motionless, gazing at me, although but little 

 caution had been used in approaching him. 



But a short experience of danger on the part of 

 the black-tail changes all this; and where hunters 

 are often afoot, he becomes as wild and wary as may 

 be. Then the successful still-hunter shows that he 

 is indeed well up in the higher forms of hunting 

 craft. For the man who can, not once by accident, 

 but again and again, as a regular thing, single- 

 handed, find and kill his black-tail, has shown that 

 he is no mere novice in his art; still-hunting the 

 black-tail is a sport that only the skilful can follow 



