The Whitetail Deer. 41 



gets a chance to kill a deer. The deep baying of the 

 hounds speedily gives warning that the game is afoot ; and 

 the watching hunters, who have already hid their horses 

 carefully, look to their rifles. Sometimes the deer comes 

 far ahead of the dogs, running very swiftly with neck 

 stretched straight out ; and if the cover is thick such an 

 animal is hard to hit. At other times, especially if the 

 quarry is a young buck, it plays along not very far ahead 

 of its baying pursuers, bounding and strutting with head up 

 and white flag flaunting. If struck hard, down goes the 

 flag at once, and the deer plunges into a staggering 

 run, while the hounds yell with eager ferocity as they follow 

 the bloody trail. Usually we do not have to drive more 

 than one or two bottoms before getting a deer, which is 

 forthwith packed behind one of the riders, as the distance 

 is not great, and home we come in triumph. Sometimes, 

 however, we fail to find game, or the deer take unguarded 

 passes, or the shot is missed. Occasionally I have killed 

 deer on these hunts ; generally I have merely sat still a 

 long while, listened to the hounds, and at last heard some- 

 body else shoot. In fact such hunting, though good enough 

 fun if only tried rarely, would speedily pall if followed at 

 all regularly. 



Personally the chief excitement I have had in connection 

 therewith has arisen from some antic of my horse ; a half- 

 broken bronco is apt to become unnerved when a man with 

 a gun tries to climb on him in a hurry. On one hunt in 1 890 

 I rode a wild animal named Whitefoot. He had been a con- 

 firmed and very bad bucker three years before, when I had 

 him in my string on the round-up ; but had grown quieter 



