The Whitetail Deer 53 



antelope, have suffered far less from the advent of 

 the white hunters, ranchmen, and settlers. They 

 are of course not as plentiful as formerly ; but some 

 are still to be found in almost all their old haunts. 

 Where the river, winding between rows of high 

 buttes, passes my ranch house, there is a long suc- 

 cession of heavily wooded bottoms; and on all of 

 these, even on the one whereon the house itself 

 stands, there are a good many whitetail yet left. 



When we take a day's regular hunt we usually 

 wander afar, either to the hills after blacktail or to 

 the open prairie after antelope. But if we are short 

 of meat, and yet have no time for a regular hunt, 

 being perhaps able to spare only a couple of hours 

 after the day's work is over, then all hands turn 

 out to drive a bottom for whitetail. We usually 

 have one or two trackhounds at the ranch; true 

 Southern deerhounds, black and tan, with lop ears 

 and hanging lips, their wrinkled faces stamped with 

 an expression of almost ludicrous melancholy. They 

 are not fast, and have none of the alert look of the 

 pied and spotted modern foxhound; but their noses 

 are very keen, their voices deep and mellow, and 

 they are wonderfully stanch on a trail. 



All is bustle and laughter as we start on such a 

 hunt. The baying hounds bound about, as the rifles 

 are taken down; the wiry ponies are roped out of 

 the corral, and each broad-hatted hunter swings joy- 

 fully into the saddle. If the pony bucks or "acts 



