42 THE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



but struck near the hip, and the crippled deer 

 went slowly down a ravine. Running over a 

 hillock to cut it off, I found it in some brush a 

 few hundred yards beyond and finished it with 

 a second ball. Quickly dressing it, I packed it 

 on my horse, and trotted back leading him ; 

 an hour afterwards we saw through the waning 

 light the quaint, home-like outlines of the 

 ranch house. 



After all, however, blacktail can only at times 

 be picked up by chance in this way. More 

 often it is needful to kill them by fair still- 

 hunting, among the hills or wooded mountains 

 where they delight to dwell. If hunted they 

 speedily become wary. By choice they live 

 in such broken country that it is difficult to pur- 

 sue them with hounds ; and they are by no 

 means such water-loving animals as whitetail. 

 On the other hand, the land in which they dwell 

 is very favorable to the still-hunter who does 

 not rely merely on stealth, but who can walk 

 and shoot well. They do not go on the open 

 prairie, and, if possible, they avoid deep for- 

 ests, while, being good climbers, they like hills. 

 In the mountains, therefore, they keep to 

 what is called park country, where glades al- 

 ternate with open groves. On the great plains 

 they avoid both the heavily timbered river bot- 

 toms and the vast treeless stretches of level or 

 rolling grass land ; their chosen abode being 

 the broken and hilly region, scantily wooded, 

 which skirts almost every plains river and 

 forms a belt, sometimes very narrow, some- 

 times many miles in breadth, between the 

 alluvial bottom land and the prairies beyond. 

 In these Bad Lands dwarfed pines and cedars 



