HOW TO TRACK VERY WILD DEER. 139 



here is a good opportunity to do that very thing, for 

 just ahead of you a little streamlet runs into the creek. 

 Its bottom is low, and its sides are so fringed with 

 brush that you can steal down to the main creek with 

 little danger of being seen. 



You reach the main creek and find no tracks. They 

 must then have crossed it. The ridges on the other 

 side are now nearly as close to the creek as those you 

 have just left. Might it not be expedient to get be- 

 hind them instead of going back to the others ? Un- 

 doubtedly it would be if you can get behind them 

 without being seen, and that you can easily do by 

 going back two hundred or three hundred yards or 

 so. The loss of that much distance amounts to noth- 

 ing, and you can there cross the track and find its 

 course as well as here. 



But stop ; not that way. Go back behind your 

 ridge again and retrace your old track. It looks like 

 unnecessary particularity, I admit, but then it takes 

 little time. And take my word for it when I tell you 

 that a fair percentage of your failures in still-hunting 

 comes from leaving in your net a few loose knots^ 

 to tighten which would have cost you only a trifle 

 more of work, care, and time. And mark another 

 thing. While going back do not neglect to look the 

 creek-bottom over again because you have once ex- 

 amined it. 



Back you go nearly two hundred yards, looking 

 over the ridge from time to time as before. Over 

 across the creek upon -ground you thoroughly scanned 

 before something catches your eye. It is only a spot 

 about the size of your hat, but in shape it is marvel- 

 ously like the haunch of a deer that is almost hidden 

 by the upturned butt of a huge fallen tree. The tree 



