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HUNTING TRIPS 



bed of the river. The rolling hills sloped 

 steeply off into long valleys and deep ravines. 

 They were sparsely covered with coarse 

 grass, and also with an irregular growth of 

 tall sage-brush, which in some places 

 gathered into dense thickets. A beginner 

 would have thought the country entirely too 

 barren of cover to hold deer, but a very little 

 experience teaches one that deer will be 

 found in thickets of such short and sparse 

 growth that it seems as if they could hide 

 nothing; and, what is more, that they will 

 often skulk round in such thickets without 

 being discovered. And a black-tail is a bold, 

 free animal, liking to go out in comparatively 

 open country, where he must trust to his 

 own powers, and not to any concealment, to 

 protect him from danger. 



\Yhere the hilly country joined the allu- 

 vial river bottom, it broke off short into steep 

 bluffs, up which none but a Western pony 

 could have climbed. It is really wonderful 

 to see what places a pony can get over, and 

 the indifference with which it regards turn- 



