AY THE FAR WEST. 269 



intelligent fellow ran forward and commenced worrying the 

 animal a proof that he had seen it before ; so we decided 

 that he was the hero of the occasion. 



When we carried it back we cut it up and cooked a portion 

 of it for dinner, and I must say it was the tenderest and 

 most succulent venison I had ever tasted. We hung- what 

 we did not use on a tree ; but its smell brought so many 

 wolves about the camp during the night that they annoyed 

 us sorely, and we had to use our rifles and shot-guns occa- 

 sionally on them, always taking aim at the shining eyes 

 which were illumined so brightly by the fire that they seemed 

 to glow. We killed seven of them before eleven o'clock, and 

 after that time they gave us a rest, though their melancholy 

 howling rung in our ears all night long. 



My companion told me during the evening that he had 

 never seen a deer so easily captured by wolves as the one in 

 the morning, and he attributed it to his being surprised. 

 Deer always rush for the water, it seems, when pursued by 

 these animals ; but he never knew the latter to follow them 

 through it, though he had seen them head one off in a lake, 

 and finally capture it by keeping it swimming until it was so 

 exhausted that it could make no defence against them. 



We hunted in this section for two days with splendid 

 success, then descended to the foot-hills, in order to bag some 

 does and fawns, for the latter rarely go as high up on the 

 mountains as the males, as they think they enjoy greater 

 security by hiding in the thickets than in bounding over the 

 rocky pinnacles. Another reason advanced by hunters for 

 this characteristic is, that when the fawns are young they 

 have not the sense of smell, so that they are more likely to 

 escape their many foes when concealed in thickets than if they 

 had the sense fully developed, and kept to open ground. Dams 

 also prefer such places to secrete their youngsters while they 

 are out grazing; so that it is evidently a wise choice on their 

 j art to keep to the foot-hills. The ground being wet, we 

 decided to make a bed for ourselves that would lift us out of 

 the reach of rheumatism, and this we did by driving four 

 crotches, sharpened at one end, into the ground and placing 



