156 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



"All right, Max. Go ahead and show me." 



We toiled up to a much- too-distant point en the rounded 

 summit, and as Max slowed up and peered down the farther 

 side, he pointed and began to speak. 



"He was standing right down there on that little patch of 

 bare — why!" he exclaimed. "There's a dee-er there nowl But 

 it's a doe! Get down! Get down!" and he crouched. Then 

 I woke up and became interested. 



"It is not a doe, Max. I see horns!" — Bang! 



And in another five seconds a fine buck lay dead on the 

 very spot where Sieber's loved and lost buck had stood one 

 year previously. But that was only an unbelievable coinci- 

 dence, — unbelievable to all save old Max. 



The natural impulse of the mule deer of those bad-lands 

 when flushed by a hunter is to run over a ridge, and escape 

 over the top; but that is bad judgement and often proves 

 fatal. It would be wiser for them to run down, to the bottoms 

 of those gashed and tortuous gullies, and escape by zig-zagging 

 along the dry stream beds. 



The White-Tailed, or Virginia Deer is the wisest mem- 

 ber of the Deer Family in North America, and it will be our 

 last big-game species to become extinct. It has reduced self- 

 preservation to an exact science. 



In areas of absolute protection it becomes very bold, and 

 breeds rapidly. Around our bungalow in the wilds of Putman 

 County, New York, the deer come and stamp under our 

 windows, tramp through our garden, feed in broad daylight 

 with our neighbor's cattle, and jauntily jump across the roads 

 almost anywhere. They are beautiful objects, in those wild 

 wooded landscapes of lake and hill. 



But in the Adirondacks, what a change! If you are keen 

 you may see a few deer in the closed season, but to see in the 

 hunting season a buck with good horns you must be a real 

 hunter. As a skulker and hider, and a detector of hunters, 

 I know no deer equal to the white-tail. In making a safe 



