The Whitetail Deer. 49 



very plentiful round this camp ; before sunrise and after 

 sundown they called unceasingly. 



Next day I took a long tramp and climb after 

 mountain sheep and missed a running shot at a fine ram, 

 about a hundred yards off ; or rather I hit him and followed 

 his bloody trail a couple of miles, but failed to find him ; 

 whereat I returned to camp much cast down. 



Early the following morning Sylvane and I started for 

 another hunt, this time on horseback. The air was crisp 

 and pleasant ; the beams of the just-risen sun struck 

 sharply on the umber-colored hills and white cliff walls 

 guarding the river, bringing into high relief their strangely 

 carved and channelled fronts. Below camp the river was 

 little but a succession of shallow pools strung along the 

 broad sandy bed which in spring-time was filled from 

 bank to bank with foaming muddy water. Two mallards 

 sat in one of these pools ; and I hit one with the rifle, so 

 nearly missing that the ball scarcely ruffled a feather ; yet 

 in some way the shock told, for the bird after flying 

 thirty yards dropped on the sand. 



Then we left the river and our active ponies scrambled 

 up a small canyon-like break in the bluffs. All day we 

 rode among the hills ; sometimes across rounded slopes, 

 matted with short buffalo grass ; sometimes over barren 

 buttes of red or white clay, where only sage brush and 

 cactus grew ; or beside deep ravines, black with stunted 

 cedar ; or along beautiful winding coulies, where the grass 

 grew rankly, and the thickets of ash and wild plum made 

 brilliant splashes of red and yellow and tender green. 

 Yet we saw nothing. 



