i 9 4 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



while in the old days there were parts of Texas and the 

 Indian Territory where it was found in great herds far 

 out on the prairie. Moreover, the peculiar nature of its 

 chosen habitat, while generally enabling it to resist the 

 onslaught of man longer than any of its fellows, some- 

 times exposes it to speedy extermination. To the west- 

 ward of the rich bottom-lands and low prairies of the 

 Mississippi Valley proper, when the dry plains country 

 is reached, the natural conditions are much less favorable 

 for whitetail than for other big game. The black bear, 

 which in the East has almost precisely the same habitat 

 as the whitetail, disappears entirely on the great plains, 

 and reappears in the Rockies in regions which the white- 

 tail does not reach. All over the great plains, into the 

 foothills of the Rockies, the whitetail is found, but only 

 in the thick timber of the river bottoms. Throughout 

 the regions of the Upper Missouri and Upper Platte, the 

 Big Horn, Powder, Yellowstone, and Cheyenne, over all 

 of which I have hunted, the whitetail lives among the 

 cottonwood groves and dense brush growth that fringe 

 the river beds and here and there extend some distance 

 up the mouths of the large creeks. In these places the 

 whitetail and the mule-deer may exist in close proximity; 

 but normally neither invades the haunts of the other. 



Along the ordinary plains river, such as the Little 

 Missouri, where I ranched for many years, there are 

 three entirely different types of country through which 

 a man passes as he travels away from the bed of the river. 

 There is first the alluvial river bottom covered with 

 cottonwood and box-elder, together with thick brush. 



