272 Hunting the Mule -Deer in Colorado. 



growth and over all sorts of ground ; had seen scores of deer, 

 wounded a few, to my great regret, but, as a rule, had been sparing 

 of ammunition, unwilling to miss or only to maim. And so I 

 came to know them well, and I am glad to say that I was never 

 tempted to harm an inexperienced and careless fawn, or the doe 

 cumbered with maternal cares, although opportunities were frequent 

 for making sure work with these. 



I think the man that can kill a "papoose" — unless impelled by 

 the hunger that knows no law — is no better than an Indian. He is 

 a grade worse. Here, in Colorado, the game-law lets a man kill a 

 deer out of season if he is hungry or if his family needs the meat. 

 It ought to imprison the man who will kill a fawn for any other 

 reason, or even then, if he can get jack-rabbits instead. I once 

 heard Len Pollard tell about killing a doe in the bad lands when 

 he was almost starving, on one of his wild journeys. It was July. 

 She was very poor, but Len was hungry. As he stooped to bleed 

 her, something touched the hand that was drawing his knife. It was 

 a little fawn, and right behind it in the bushes was its twin. Both 

 came and smelt the body, and then licked the hunter's hands. Len 

 is made of good stuff, and he couldn't stand that. He mounted his 

 horse, but the little things followed, and finally he turned and merci- 

 fully killed both of them rather than leave them to starve. But he 

 recalls it rather in the light of a tragedy. 



Leaving camp early, but not until after a good breakfast, with a 

 brace of invalids whose Colorado appetites are beginning to clamor 

 for relief from the monotony of fresh trout, caught from the stream 

 beside which is our rest, and which the Indians call Yampah, — with 

 light enough to show a moving object a mile away, or a fresh track 

 from the saddle, I will suppose myself, one September morning, five 

 years after the day of disappointment just described, riding at a 

 leisurely pace up a long hollow in a hill-side with an east and south 

 exposure. I have never hunted here until now, but I see groves of 

 quaking asp succeed each other for miles away to the right ; and, 

 through occasional vistas to the left, the black pine-tops show, rising 

 from the river by west and north slopes to meet me on the rounded 

 crest bared by last year's fires. There the ground will surely show 

 if any of the kind I seek have lately passed, and those groves are 

 the haunts they love. Skirting their upper edges, with now and then 



