282 A REFRACTORY MARE. 



nearer. The buck was standing almost directly facing him, a 



little on one side, and seemed, when F fired, to go off as 



if hit. We had a dog with us that day a young retriever 

 which F - had brought, thinking he might be useful after 

 wounded deer ; so we put him on the buck's trail, which he 

 took up at once, going off at a great pace and soon leaving us 

 far behind, as we had gone out on foot. We followed as fast 

 as we could run, and after going half a mile heard the deer 

 bleating, and found it lying 011 the ground with the dog on 

 the top of it, he seeming to think that he must not use his 

 teeth. Now the curious part of it was that the ball had broken 

 the near front leg off above the knee and the off hind leg above 

 the hock, and yet this deer had gone all that distance almost 

 as fast as if perfectly sound. This retriever would have made 

 a good deer-dog with a little more training, and was the second 

 I had seen used for that purpose. The owner of the other 

 one refused twenty pounds for him, which is a large price for 

 a dog in the west. 



As we had found a good many ducks at some lakes near 

 camp, we thought we would have a day's duck-shooting for a 

 change ; so I went to fetch the mare to ride to them, and was 

 bringing her in when something startled her, and she bolted, 

 dragging the rope out of my hands. As she had sixty feet of 

 rope on her I thought I should have no trouble in catching her, 



and told F to ride on and that I would overtake him ; but 



she always knew when I was close to the end of the rope, 

 trotting a few yards just as I was going to jump on the end of 



it so that when F returned, three hours later, there was 



I still chasing the mare, and I only got her at last by driving 

 her into some low brush, where she could not judge distance so 



