THE FIRST SIGHT OF GAME. 91 



No, no. Keep out of those briers. Attempt no 

 short-cuts. Walk around to that ridge on the right 

 and take that, for it is high ground and is not brushy. 



You listen, however, to your weary legs and take the 

 short-cut. You finally reach the point, and are about 

 to sit down when your attention is suddenly arrested 

 by three small objects careering away nearly a quarter 

 of a mile off. They look but little larger than rab- 

 bits; and their woolly tails bob up and down in much 

 the same manner, as, on a gentle rolling canter, they 

 dissolve in the brush and briers. 



Only a doe and two fawns. They were lying just 

 over the point and heard you enjoying the luxury of 

 that short-cut. By going that way you made an un- 

 necessary cracking of brush which you could have 

 avoided by taking this old logging-road that leads to 

 that other ridge. That ridge connects with the one 

 on which the deer were, and is not brushy enough to 

 prevent quiet walking. Thus you would have made 

 no noise and would have been all the time in a posi- 

 tion to see anything that might run, instead of being 

 in the brush and briers where you could see nothing. 

 You may sit down now, but spend the time in ponder- 

 ing this moral: Beware of short-cuts in still-hunting. 



But deer do not always lie upon the ridges or their 

 points, either in a " slash " or anywhere else. There 

 is some old hunter's talk about " bucks lyin' up on 

 the pints a-hardenin' their horns." But my experience 

 has been that even an old buck at the time his horns 

 are hardening late in the summer or very early in 

 the fall is just about as fond of a nice little brushy 

 basin as of the points; especially when the sun is hot 

 and there is little cover on the points. And at this 

 time when the acorns are falling and the deer's 



