248 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



curred, the chances of the hunter are usually at an end. 

 On the other hand, from the nature of its haunts the mule- 

 deer usually offers fairly good opportunities for stalking. 

 It is not as big or as valuable as the elk, and therefore 

 it is not as readily seen or as eagerly followed, and in 

 consequence holds its own better. But though the sport 

 it yields calls normally for a greater amount of hardihood 

 and endurance in the hunter than is the case with the 

 sport yielded by the prongbuck, and especially by the 

 whitetail, yet when existing in like numbers it is easier 

 to kill than either of these two animals. 



Sometimes in the early fall, when hunting from the 

 ranch, I have spent the night in some likely locality, sleep- 

 ing rolled up in a blanket on the ground so as to be ready 

 to start at the first streak of dawn. On one such occa- 

 sion a couple of mule-deer came to where my horse was 

 picketed just before I got up. I heard them snort or 

 whistle, and very slowly unwrapped myself from the 

 blanket, turned over, and crawled out, rifle in hand. 

 Overhead the stars were paling in the faint gray light, 

 but the ravine in which the deer were was still so black 

 that, watch as I would, I could not see them. I feared to 

 move around lest I might disturb them, but after wig- 

 gling toward a little jutting shoulder I lay still to wait 

 for the light. They went off, however, while it was still 

 too dusk to catch more than their dim and formless out- 

 lines, and though I followed them as rapidly and cau- 

 tiously as possible, I never got a shot at them. On other 

 occasions fortune has favored me, and before the sun rose 

 I have spied some buck leisurely seeking his day bed, 



