Hunting from the Ranch 45 



entirely out of meat, I started with one of my cow- 

 hands, Merrifield, to kill a deer. We were on a 

 couple of stout, quiet ponies, accustomed to firing 

 and to packing game. After riding a mile or two 

 down the bottoms we left the river and struck off 

 up a winding valley, which led back among the hills. 

 In a short while we were in a blacktail country, and 

 began to keep a sharp lookout for game, riding par- 

 allel to, but some little distance from, one another. 

 The sun, beating down through the clear air, was 

 very hot; the brown slopes of short grass, and still 

 more, the white clay walls of the Bad Lands, threw 

 the heat rays in our faces. We skirted closely all 

 likely-looking spots, such as the heavy brush-patches 

 in the bottoms of the winding valleys, and the groves 

 of ash and elm in the basins and pockets flanking the 

 high plateaus; sometimes we followed a cattle trail 

 which ran down the middle of a big washout, and 

 again we rode along the brink of a deep cedar can- 

 yon. After a while we came to a coulie with a small 

 muddy pool at its mouth ; and round this pool there 

 was much fresh deer sign. The coulie was but half 

 a mile long, heading into and flanked by the spurs 

 of some steep, bare hills. Its bottom, which was 

 fifty yards or so across, was choked by a dense 

 growth of brush, chiefly thorny bullberries, while 

 the- sides were formed by cut banks twelve or fifteen 

 feet high. My companion rode up the middle, while 

 I scrambled up one of the banks, and, dismounting, 



