222 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



believed. This was, to creep up to a deer while feed- 

 ing in the open, by watching when it shook its tail, and 

 then remaining motionless. I cannot say whether the 

 habit is a universal one, but on two occasions at least 

 I was able thus to creep up to the feeding deer, because 

 before lifting its head it invariably shook its tail, thereby 

 warning me to stay without moving until it had lifted 

 its head, scrutinized the landscape, and again lowered 

 its head to graze. The eyesight of the whitetail, as com- 

 pared with that of the pronghorn antelope, is poor. It 

 notes whatever is in motion, but it seems unable to dis- 

 tinguish clearly anything that is not in motion. On the 

 occasions in question no antelope that I have ever seen 

 would have failed to notice me at once and to take alarm. 

 But the whitetail, although it scrutinized me narrowly, 

 while I lay motionless with my head toward it, seemed 

 in each case to think that I must be harmless, and after 

 a while it would go on feeding. In one instance the 

 animal fed over a ridge and walked off before I could 

 get a shot; in the other instance I killed it. 



In 1894, on the last day I spent at the ranch, and 

 with the last bullet I fired from my rifle, I killed a fine 

 whitetail buck. I left the ranch house early in the after- 

 noon on my favorite pony, Muley, my foreman, Sylvane 

 Ferris, riding with me. We forded the shallow river 

 and rode up a long winding coulee, with belts of tim- 

 ber running down its bottom. After going a couple of 

 miles, by sheer good luck we stumbled on three white- 

 tail a buck, a doe and a fawn. When we saw them 

 they were trying to sneak off, and immediately my fore- 



