THE WHITE TAIL DEER, 53 



at last perchance the excitement of a shot at 

 a buck, standing at gaze, with luminous eye- 

 balls. 



The most common method of killing the 

 whitetail is by hounding; that is, by driving 

 it with hounds past runways where hunters 

 are stationed — for all wild animals when on 

 the move prefer to follow certain definite 

 routes. This is a legitimate, but inferior, kind 

 of sport. 



However, even killing driven deer may be 

 good fun at certain times. Most of the white- 

 tail we kill round the ranch are obtained in 

 this fashion. On the Little Missouri — as 

 throughout the plains country generally — these 

 deer cling to the big wooded river bottoms, 

 while the blacktail are found in the broken 

 country back from the river. The tangled 

 mass of cottonwoods, box-alders, and thorny 

 bullberry bushes which cover the bottoms 

 afford the deer a nearly secure shelter from 

 the still-hunter ; and it is only by the aid of 

 hounds that they can be driven from their 

 wooded fastnesses. They hold their own 

 better than any other game. The great herds 

 of buffalo, and the bands of elk, have vanished 

 completely ; the swarms of antelope and black- 

 tail have been wofully thinned ; but the white- 

 tail, which w«re never found in such throngs 

 as either buffalo or elk, blacktail or antelope, 

 have suffered far less from the advent of the 

 white hunters, ranchmen, and settlers. They 

 are of course not as plentiful as formerly ; but 

 some are still to be found in almost all their 

 old haunts. Where the river, winding be- 

 tween rows of high buttes, passes my ranch 



