92 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



horns are fully hardened I never could observe that 

 either bucks, does, or fawns had any preference for 

 points, though of course they will often lie on them. 

 Now there, some three hundred yards to the right, is 

 a nice little basin well filled with old logs and grown 

 up with brush, which will probably repay inspection. 



You go over to it, and before you get a fair sight of 

 the bottom of it you are startled by a hollow- toned 

 phew long-drawn and penetrating. Instantly there is 

 a crash of brush, the thump of heavy hoofs, a gleam 

 of dark gray among the yielding bushes, a sudden 

 glistening of the sun on sharp-pointed tines, and in a 

 twinkling bursts from the brush into the open ground 

 the stately form of the buck that made those big 

 tracks you saw leading into the "slash." Away he goes, 

 with sleek coat bright and glossy in the morning 

 sun, his shining horns carried well up and his long 

 snowy tail waving up and down. Just as you begin 

 to remember what you came for he wheels around a 

 jutting point and is gone. 



And now, why did you forget the lesson you so 

 lately had about short-cuts ? It was too much trouble 

 to go a little way around, so you came directly down 

 the wind, perhaps without thinking about it at all. 

 It was also too much trouble to get on the ridge in- 

 stead of entering the basin so low down as you did. 

 Now if you had made a circuit of three hundred 

 yards, and got upon this ridge to the leeward, you 

 might have still had to take a running shot, but you 

 would have been almost certain to get as close 

 again before starting the buck, and would have seen 

 him three times as long after you did start him. 

 Unless you are more careful you will not only get 



