122 THE DEER FAMILY 



asro in the river-thickets in the hills and mountains 

 of Dakota and Montana. I met two of them one 

 morning in a little grove but a very short distance 

 from our camp when I went to the stream soon after 

 our bugler had sounded the reveille, which echoed in 

 the hills. Like all other animals they were fairly 

 tame, and easy to approach and kill until they learned 

 the sound of the gun. It is fortunate that they learn 

 quickly and are able to take care of themselves wher- 

 ever the cover which they like is large enough to af- 

 ford them a chance to escape. 



Like other wild animals, deer are fond of salt, and 

 resort to salt springs or licks, where they are often 

 shot from ambush. Hunters used to place salt in the 

 woods as a means of baiting the white-tail, but this 

 practice is now illegal in New York and perhaps else- 

 where. 



Many years ago in Utah and Wyoming, I used to 

 ride about in the little river-bottoms, looking over 

 natural hedges of brush into meadows and grassy spots 

 beside the beaver-ponds, trying for a shot at a white- 

 tail standing or more often running. 



The first morning I went out in this way, my horse 

 walked without making any noise across a damp, grassy 

 piece of ground to a point where I could look over 

 some low brush into a meadow where there was a 

 stream and beaver-pond. As I stood up in my stirrups 

 to look over the brush a large stag, with fine antlers, 

 stopped feeding, raised his head, and looked me in 

 the eye but a gun-length away across the narrow 

 bushes. I had a touch of that excitement or nervous- 

 ness which is known to sportsmen as "buck-fever," and 



