184 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



peep over into the gulch, let us do so. If the deer 

 are still on foot, as they may be, lounging slowly 

 along, it being not yet very warm, we shall be quite 

 apt to see them. And if we find no tracks coming 

 out of the head of the gulch, we shall then know that 

 they have been perverse enough to lie down in there. 

 And we can then go down it with the wind in our 

 faces, and start them in such a way as to get a pretty 

 fair shot. 



We reach the head of the gulch, having seen nothing 

 on the way, and there find no tracks. But wait. Do 

 not start into the gulch too soon, on the assumption 

 that the deer are lying in there. I did not tell you 

 that the deer would emerge at the extreme point of it. 

 There are three or four little ravines on each side, and 

 some nice little ridges too, by which they could have 

 walked out. Examine the ground for a hundred yards 

 on each side, going back several yards into the brush; 

 and look with great care, for all may not now be 

 traveling together. 



On the other side, some fifty yards below the ex- 

 treme point of the gulch, you find quite a trail lead- 

 ing out of a little ravine. "Just like a sheep-trail " 

 you will probably report it when you go home, giving 

 an ignorant person to believe there were forty or fifty 

 deer using it. But the whole has been done by these 

 four deer. 



And now another question arises. Here are tracks 

 running both ways and both look equally fresh. Have 

 the deer come this way and returned, or have they 

 gone that way first and returned this way? 



If there were no water in the question this might per- 

 plex you a moment. But as the tracks are evidently 

 made by the same deer whose tracks we saw at the 



