28 HUNTING SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



deer, tranquilly browsing his pasture, up went the rifle, 

 one moment's pause, and then the sharp report rang out, 

 and wakened the echoes of the shore and surrounding 

 hills. This time mischief was done ; the animal sprang 

 into the air, and bounded up the steep as though unhurt, 

 instantly disappearing among the brushwood. There he 

 was speedily found, a noble fellow with branching ant- 

 lers, but stone dead, the ball having passed clean through 

 him. 



Enough for one day ; and beside, not loving killing 

 for mere killing's sake, they had determined to shoot no 

 more deer than were needful to keep the spit turning 

 during their forest life. 



They were right glad to rest on their rustic beds that 

 night, after the hot fatiguing day. Their van-guard, 

 too, had not been without his share of fatigue ; having, 

 in addition to the same long journey, some parts of 

 which he had had to traverse three times over, killed 

 two deer, whose flesh he had cut up into thin slips, and 

 was drying it for future provender, in the smoke of a 

 wood fire, kindled in a bark hut for the purpose. This 

 mode of preparing meat, is called "jerking " it. In 

 very hot countries, it is dried in the sun, the long thin 

 slips, from three to six yards long, being hung in fes- 

 toons on the branches of some neighboring tree. 



On the river, just above the traveller's camp, was a 

 dam constructed of large logs, and slenderer ones laid 

 cross-wise, on which brushwood and earth were placed, 

 so as to make all tight. Entangled in this, a fine young 

 deer was found dead. The poor creature's foot had 

 slipped between the logs ; struggling to free himself the 



