40 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



and his only concern is to effect his immediate dis- 

 appearance. 



This delicacy of scent is developed very early and 

 needs no practice to keep it acute. Once, while hunt- 

 ing on a very hot morning, I sat down to rest at the 

 mouth of a little canon that led into a larger one. At 

 the time scarcely any perceptible wind was stirring. 

 I had been seated only about two minutes when a 

 sudden crash and bump, bump, bump of hoofs brought 

 me with a bound to my feet, and I saw two half- 

 grown fawns bounding up the canon at full speed and 

 a hundred yards away. On examining the ground 

 I found that they had been lying under a thick bush 

 of sumac about eighty yards from me, and had sprung 

 several feet at the first bound. An intervening rise 

 of ground showed plainly that they did not see me, 

 and as I had been walking in a soft dusty cattle-trail 

 with moccasins with great stillness, sat down quietly, 

 and sat without anything moving for over two minutes 

 (just about the time it would take scent to move to 

 them in the light breeze there was), I feel equally 

 confident that they did not hear me. From my knowl- 

 edge of that ground I know positively that those 

 fawns had never before met a man. I have often 

 noticed that fawns, though they may stand and look 

 at you, or stop when you start them with a noise only, 

 seldom stop when they smell you. 



He who has seen a good dog scent grouse against 

 a cool morning or evening breeze on a prairie needs 

 scarcely to be told of the distance at which a deer can 

 smell such a great gross beast as a man, especially 

 with a cool damp breeze in a valley. 



This fear of a man's scent is also more universal 

 than the fear of a sight or sound of him. In an 



