220 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



was there, I would never have discovered him. As it 

 was, I watched for a quarter of an hour, and had about 

 made up my mind that he must have gone somewhere 

 else, when a slight movement nearly below me attracted 

 my attention, and I caught a glimpse of him nearly three 

 hundred yards off, moving quietly along by the side of 

 a little dry watercourse which was right in the middle 

 of the brush. I waited until he was well past, and then 

 again slipped back with the utmost care, and ran on until 

 I was nearly opposite the head of the coulee, when I again 

 approached the ridge-line. Here there was no sage-bush, 

 only tufts of tall grass, which were stirring in the little 

 breeze which had just sprung up, fortunately in the 

 right direction. Taking advantage of a slight inequality 

 in the soil, I managed to get behind one of these tufts, 

 and almost immediately saw the buck. Toward the head 

 of the coulee the brush had become scanty and low, and 

 he was now walking straight forward, evidently keeping 

 a sharp lookout. The sun had just set. His course took 

 him past me at a distance of eighty yards. When di- 

 rectly opposite I raised myself on my elbows, drawing 

 up the rifle, which I had shoved ahead of me. The 

 movement of course caught his eye at once; he halted 

 for one second to look around and see what it was, and 

 during that second I pulled the trigger. Away he went, 

 his white flag switching desperately, and though he gal- 

 loped over the hill, I felt he was mine. However, when 

 I got to the top of the rise over which he had gone, 

 I could not see him, and as there was a deep though 

 narrow coulee filled with brush on the other side, I had 



