THE WHITETAIL DEER 219 



ambush of sage-bush and cedar on a high point which 

 overlooked the entire basin. I crept up to my ambush 

 with the utmost caution early in the morning, and there 

 I spent the entire day, with my lunch and a water-bottle, 

 continually scanning the whole region most carefully 

 with the glasses. The day passed less monotonously than 

 it sounds, for every now and then I would catch a glimpse 

 of wild life; once a fox, once a coyote, and once a badger; 

 while the little chipmunks had a fine time playing all 

 around me. At last, about mid-afternoon, I suddenly saw 

 the buck come quietly out of the dense thicket in which 

 he had made his midday bed, and deliberately walk up 

 a hillside and lie down in a thin clump of ash where the 

 sun could get at him for it was in September, just be- 

 fore the rut began. There was no chance of stalking 

 him in the place he had chosen, and all I could do was 

 to wait. It was nearly sunset before he moved again, 

 except that I occasionally saw him turn his head. Then 

 he got up, and after carefully scrutinizing all the neigh- 

 borhood, moved down into a patch of fairly thick brush, 

 where I could see him standing and occasionally feeding, 

 all the time moving slowly up the valley. I now slipped 

 most cautiously back and trotted nearly a mile until I 

 could come up behind one of the ridges bounding the 

 valley in which he was. The wind had dropped and it 

 was almost absolutely still when I crawled flat on my face 

 to the crest, my hat in my left hand, my rifle in my 

 right. There was a big sage-bush conveniently near, and 

 under this I peered. There was a good deal of brush in 

 the valley below, and if I had not known that the buck 



