THE MULE DEER. 151 



An hour more of slow, careful search, and no result; 

 when suddenly Tige strains on his leash; Dash draws ahead, 

 and stands a-point. Bates whispers: 



"There's a Deer within twenty feet of us." 



It bounds from our very side; rushes down a Deer-path 

 for the woods below. I raise my rifle to fire when it shall 

 clear some large tree-trunks, when Bates throws up his 

 Burgess, fires a clear snap-shot, and the Deer goes head- 

 long down the hill-side, with a broken neck. It was 

 splendidly done. 



"Yes," said he; "but it was a snap-shot; I had no 

 aim." 



"So much the better, my boy! A rifle leveled as accu- 

 rately as that, without aim, at an animal on the jump, is a 

 better shot than the best standing-shot can possibly be." 



The Deer proved a fine two-year-old buck, in perfect 

 condition, and it made us glad. 



It was now about two o' clock in the afternoon, and Bates 

 said: 



" We are about three miles from camp; suppose we make 

 a hunt that way, and I can get the horses, and get the meat 

 to camp before dark." 



We met nothing on the way; and he repeated the trip of 

 yesterday, and I repeated the supper, over which we were 

 both as glad as before. 



The next morning, as we started out, Bates said: 



" I don't like the appearance of the sky this morning. It 

 looks as if there was going to be a fog, and that is no joke, 

 in these mountains. All peaks and headlands are obscured, 

 which are our guides at other times. The sun is hidden 

 entirely, and for a hundred miles every place is like every 

 other place, and a man is as safe to camp and remain still 

 as to stir a step -safer, ordinarily only they may hold for 

 two or three days. But we will hunt, the forenoon, and be 

 on the watch for the mist." 



We were going on new ground, up a high, sloping ridge 

 that seemed to reach to the mountains beyond. We sep- 

 arated, for once, to come together higher up, a mile farther 



