102 THE DEER FAMILY 



The proper method of pursuit is to ride to the place 

 where the game is and there dismount and seek it 

 afoot. Two hunters are the proper number, since com- 

 pany is always desirable, and, as Colonel Dodge well 

 says, there is always a chance for accidents. The 

 sportsmen should take turns in shooting. Nowadays 

 the hunter in the West is usually attended by a guide 

 who knows the country and is of great assistance in lo- 

 cating the game and placing the shooter in a position 

 to bag it. The guides are of great assistance in secur- 

 ing the wounded, and as I said of duck-punters in " Our 

 Feathered Game," they too often aid in taking the un- 

 wounded. Upon our hunt from Fort Keogh, we 

 visited no less than three mountain ranges, camped on 

 many rivers and streams — the Yellowstone, the Tongue, 

 the Rosebud, the Big Horn, and the Little Big Horn, 

 and many smaller brooks and branches. The country 

 traversed is charmingly picturesque. Hills and dales 

 are covered with grass and wild sage, fields of wild 

 sunflowers and roses, of wild gooseberries and cur- 

 rants, are surrounded b}^ groves and thickets, and mag- 

 nificent forests cover the foot-hills and extend up 

 the sides of the higher mountains to well-defined tim- 

 ber-lines, where the rocks are for a good part of the 

 year covered with snow. For several weeks we saw 

 no human beings excepting occasional bands of Crow 

 Indians, and one small party of officers from Fort 

 Custer, who were returning from a hunt in the Big 

 Horn Mountains. The bleaching bones of horses and 

 ponies were lying about in the grass where General 

 Miles and his soldiers had recently encountered the 

 Sioux. We followed for a time General Custer's last 



