138 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



are not both sides of the creek-bottom in sight of the 

 ridge where you are ? And even if it is, in places, 

 quite far, are not your chances of seeing the deer at 

 least as good as if you were directly on the track 

 again, and on low ground too ? It is difficult to see 

 how, next to following the track itself, you can do 

 anything more certain to find them than what you 

 are now doing. You know they have not gone below ; 

 if they cross the ridge you are on you will meet their 

 track ; if they keep on up the creek-bottom you will 

 be on a parallel with them; and if they recross the 

 creek and go in the direction they came from, which 

 is highly improbable, you will only lose a little time 

 in finding it out. And such time will not be impor- 

 tant, for such a movement will generally indicate that 

 they have gone to lie down, in which case there is 

 certainly no haste. And no matter what your opinion 

 may be about where they have gone, until you know 

 they are off this ground be in no haste. Let your 

 motto in tracking always be, Positively no haste, except 

 on such kinds of ground as clear open woods, etc., 

 where deer so rarely stop that it does not repay you 

 to lose time. 



For three hundred or four hundred yards more you 

 keep behind the ridge, which is sometimes low, some- 

 times high, sometimes near, and sometimes far from 

 the creek, and sometimes cut with a hollow. Yet you 

 see nothing, though you stop at every seventy or 

 eighty yards and take a good look. The creek-bot- 

 tom goes on some distance yet, and they are proba- 

 bly still ahead. 



Yet wherever it is possible, without too much dan- 

 ger of being seen, to slip in and see if you are still 

 parallel with the track, it is better to do so. And 



