66 HUNTING TRIPS 



tice I have learned to shoot about as well 

 at a wild animal as at a target. I have killed 

 rather more game than most of the ranch- 

 men who are my neighbors, though at least 

 half of them are better shots than I am. 



Time and again I have seen a man who 

 had, as he deemed, practised sufficiently at 

 a target, come out " to kill a deer " hot with 

 enthusiasm; and nine out of ten times he 

 has gone back unsuccessful, even when deer 

 were quite plenty. Usually he has been told 

 by the friend who advised him to take the 

 trip, or by the guide who inveigled him into 

 it, that " the deer were so plenty you saw 

 them all round you," and, this not proving 

 quite true, he lacks perseverance to keep on ; 

 or else he fails to see the deer at the right 

 time ; or else if he does see it he misses it, 

 making the discovery that to shoot at a gray 

 object, not over-distinctly seen, at a dis- 

 tance merely guessed at, and with a back- 

 ground of other gray objects, is very dif- 

 ferent from firing into a target, brightly 

 painted and a fixed number of yards off. 



