THE WHITE TAIL DEER. 59 



cities. One of them remarked to my com- 

 panion that he must be part German himself, 

 to which he cheerfully answered : " Well, 

 my father was a Dutchman, but my mother 

 was a white woman ! I'm pretty white my- 

 self ! " whereat the Germans glowered at him 

 gloomily. 



As we were out of meat the Alsatian and 

 one of the cowboys and I started down the 

 river with a wagon. The first day in camp it 

 rained hard, so that we could not hunt. To- 

 wards evening we grew tired of doing noth- 

 ing, and as the rain had become a mere fine 

 drizzle, we sallied out to drive one of the 

 bottoms for whitetail. The cowboy and our 

 one trackhound plunged into the young cot- 

 tonwood, which grew thickly over the sandy 

 bottom ; while the little hunter and I took 

 our stands on a cut bank, twenty feet high 

 and half a mile long, which hedged in the 

 trees from behind. Three or four game 

 trails led up through steep, narrow clefts in 

 this bank ; and we tried to watch these. 

 Soon I saw a deer in an opening below, 

 headed towards one end of the bank, round 

 which another game trail led ; and I ran hard 

 towards this end, where it turned into a 

 knife-like ridge of clay. About fifty yards 

 from the point there must have been some 

 slight irregularities in the face of the bank, 

 enough to give the deer a foothold ; for as I 

 ran along the animal suddenly bounced over 

 the crest, so close that I could have hit it 

 with my right hand. As I tried to pull up 

 short and swing round, my feet slipped from 

 under me in the wet clay, and down I went ; 



