52 The Wilderness Hunter 



the paddler in the stern makes not so much as a rip- 

 ple, and there is never a sound but the occasional 

 splash of a muskrat, or the moaning uloo-oo uloo- 

 iiloo of an owl from the deep forests; and at last 

 perchance the excitement of a shot at a buck, stand- 

 ing at gaze, with luminous eyeballs. 



The most common method of killing the white- 

 tail is by hounding; that is, by driving it with 

 hounds past runways where hunters are stationed 

 for all wild animals when on the move prefer to 

 follow certain definite routes. This is a legitimate, 

 but inferior, kind of sport. 



However, even killing driven deer may be good 

 fun at certain times. Most of the whitetail we kill 

 round the ranch are obtained in this fashion. On the 

 Little Missouri as throughout the plains country 

 generally these deer cling to the big wooded river 

 bottoms, while the blacktail are found in the broken 

 country back from the river. The tangled mass of 

 cottonwoods, box-alders, and thorny bullberry bushes 

 which cover the bottoms afford the deer a nearly se- 

 cure shelter from the still-hunter; and it is only by 

 the aid of hounds that they can be driven from their 

 wooded fastnesses. They hold their own better than 

 any other game. The great herds of buffalo, and 

 the bands of elk, have vanished completely; the 

 swarms of antelope and blacktail have been wofully 

 thinned; but the whitetail, which were never found 

 in such throngs as either buffalo or elk, blacktail or 



