62 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



The others are tracks of a doe and fawn. The "edges 

 of the tracks and the bottom of the depressions are 

 clear-cut, smooth, and fresh-looking, in that appear- 

 ance so impossible to describe. A little more inspec- 

 tion shows that the droppings, too, all vary in size. 



Look carefully now all around as far as you can see. 

 But do not look for a deer. Remember this singular 

 advice. Do not forget it for a moment. One of the 

 greatest troubles that besets the beginner is looking 

 all the time/tf/- a deer. If the artist's deer is in sight 

 you will see him quickly enough. Never mind that 

 beast at all. Spend all your time in looking for spots 

 and patches of light gray, dark gray, brown, or even 

 black. Examine all you can see from only the size of 

 your hand to the size of a small goat. Never mind 

 the shape of them. Examine, too, everything that 

 looks like the thick part of a thicket, and every blur 

 or indistinct outline in a brush. No matter how 

 much it may look like a bit of stump, fallen log, shade, 

 or tangle of brush, or how little it may in shape re- 

 semble a deer; if it is in brush, or anywhere where you 

 cannot see clearly what it is, give it a second, even a 

 third, look. Look low, too, very low, along the ground. 

 And be very careful how you run your eye over a bit 

 of brush, deciding that it is too low for a deer to be in 

 without your seeing him. Not only does a deer in the 

 woods generally look entirely unlike the deer that 

 stands in Imagination's park, but it does nof stand half 

 so high in the woods as it does in that park. When un- 

 suspicious, a deer often has his head down, and this, 

 too, makes him still lower. You need not be looking 

 at this time of day for a deer lying down, but look 

 just as low along the ground as if you were looking 

 for one lying down. 



