THE WHITETAIL DEER 221 



a very ugly feeling that I might have lost him, in spite 

 of the quantity of blood he had left along his trail. It 

 was getting dark, and I plunged quickly into the coulee. 

 Usually a wounded deer should not be followed until it 

 has had time to grow stiff, but this was just one of the 

 cases where the rule would have worked badly; in the 

 first place, because darkness was coming on, and in the 

 next place, because the animal was certain to die shortly, 

 and all that I wanted was to see where he was. I fol- 

 lowed his trail into the coulee, and expected to find that 

 he had turned down it, but a hurried examination in the 

 fading light showed me that he had taken the opposite 

 course, and I scrambled hastily out on the other side, 

 and trotted along, staring into the brush, and now and 

 then shouting or throwing in a clod of earth. When 

 nearly at the head there was a crackling in the brush, 

 and out burst the wounded buck. He disappeared be- 

 hind a clump of elms, but he had a hard hill to go up, 

 and the effort was too much for him. When I next saw 

 him he had halted, and before I could fire again down 

 he came. 



On another occasion I spied a whole herd of white- 

 tail feeding in a natural meadow, right out in the open, 

 in mid-afternoon, and was able to get up so close that 

 when I finally shot a yearling buck (which was one of 

 the deer farthest away from me, there being no big buck 

 in the outfit), the remaining deer, all does and fawns, 

 scattered in every direction, some galloping right past 

 me in their panic. Once or twice I was able to perform 

 a feat of which I had read, but in which I scarcely 



