THE MULE-DEER 103 



trail, camped where he camped, and returning from the 

 Big Horn Mountains, passed the field where he fell. 

 At evening we heard many stories of affairs with the 

 Indians, told by men who took part in them, and lis- 

 tened to many tales of wild adventure. There were, 

 of course, no houses or fences. The country and the 

 game remained the same as they had been before the 

 advent of white men. 



The mule-deer has now retreated from most of this 

 open, park-like country and is to be found, in greatly 

 diminished numbers, wild and wary, living in the wilder 

 parts of the hills and mountains. 



Roosevelt found the mule-deer plentiful in north- 

 western Colorado (January, 1901). "This high coun- 

 try," he says, "'is the summer home of the Colorado 

 elk, which are now rapidly becoming extinct, and of 

 the Colorado black-tail deer (mule-deer), which are still 

 very plentiful, but which, unless better protected, will 

 follow the elk in the next decade or so. In winter 

 both elk and deer come down to the lower country, 

 through a part of which I made my hunting trip. We 

 did not come across any elk, but I have never, even in 

 the old days, seen black-tail (mule-deer) more abun- 

 dant than they were in this region. There was hardly 

 a day when we did not see scores, and there were 

 some days that we saw hundreds. The bucks had not 

 lost their antlers, and were generally, but not always, 

 found in small troops by themselves; the does, year- 

 lings and fawns — now almost yearlings themselves — 

 went in bands. They seemed tame, and wc often 

 passed close to them before they took alarm."* Here 



* Scribners Magazine, October, lyoi. 



