The Whitetail Deer. 51 



The degree of tameness and unsuspiciousness shown 

 by whitetail deer depends, of course, upon the amount of 

 molestation to which they are exposed. Their times for 

 sleeping, feeding, and coming to water vary from the 

 same cause. Where they are little persecuted they feed 

 long after sunrise and before sunset, and drink when the 

 sun is high in the heavens, sometimes even at midday ; 

 they then show but little fear of man, and speedily become 

 indifferent to the presence of deserted dwellings. 



In the cattle country the ranch houses are often shut 

 during the months of warm weather, when the round-ups 

 succeed one another without intermission, as the calves must 

 be branded, the beeves gathered and shipped, long trips 

 made to collect strayed animals, and the trail stock driven 

 from the breeding to the fattening grounds. At that time 

 all the men-folk may have to be away in the white-topped 

 wagons, working among the horned herds, whether plod- 

 ding along the trail, or wandering to and fro on the range. 

 Late one summer, when my own house had been thus 

 closed for many months, I rode thither with a friend to 

 pass a week. The place already wore the look of having 

 slipped away from the domain of man. The wild forces, 

 barely thrust back beyond the threshold of our habitation, 

 were prompt to spring across it to renewed possession the 

 moment we withdrew. The rank grass grew tall in the 

 yard, and on the sodded roofs of the stable and sheds ; 

 the weather-beaten log walls of the house itself were^We 

 in tint with the trunks of the gnarled cottonwoods by 

 which it was shaded. Evidently the woodland creatures 



