316 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



When we carried it back we cut it up, and cooked a por- 

 tion of it for dinner ; and I must say it was the tenderest 

 and most succulent venison I had ever tasted. We hung 

 what we did not use on a tree ; but its smell brought so 

 many wolves about the camp during the night that they 

 annoyed us sorely, and we had to use our rifles and shot- 

 guns occasionally on them, always taking aim at the shin- 

 ing eyes, which were illumined so brightly by the fire that 

 they seemed to glow. We killed seven of them before 

 eleven o'clock, and after that time they gave us a rest, 

 though their melancholy howling rung in our ears all night 

 long. 



My companion told me during the evening that he had 

 never seen a deer so easily captured by wolves as the one 

 in the morning, and he attributed it to its being surprised. 

 Deer always head for the water, it seems, when pursued by 

 these animals ; but he never knew the latter to follow them 

 through it, though he had seen them head one off in a lake, 

 and finally capture it by keeping it swimming until it was 

 so exhausted that it could make no defence against them. 



We hunted in this section for two days with splendid 

 success, then descended to the foot-hills, in order to bag 

 some does and fawns; for the latter rarely go as high up 

 on the mountains as the males, as they think they enjoy 

 greater security by hiding in the thickets than in bound- 

 ing over the rocky pinnacles. Another reason advanced by 

 hunters for this characteristic is, that when the fawns are 

 young they have not the sense of smell, so that they are 

 more likely to escape their many foes when concealed in 

 thickets than if they had the sense fully developed, and kept 

 to open ground. Dams also prefer such places to secrete 

 their youngsters while they are out grazing ; so that it is 

 evidently a wise choice on their part to keep to the foot- 

 hills. The ground being wet, we decided to make a bed for 

 ourselves that would lift us out of the reach of rheumatism; 

 and this we did by driving four crotches, sharpened at one 

 end, into the ground, and placing stout boughs upon them. 

 We then put branches across the main supports in the same 



