208 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



There is scarcely a shade of color from light brown 

 to almost black, not a bit of sheen or a glistening 

 point of any kind on such ground that may not be 

 part of a deer. White spots must also be examined, 

 as the buttocks and legs inside have some white. 

 And if there are antelope .on the range, everything 

 from pure white to brown and dark gray must be in- 

 spected; as the head of an antelope lying down will 

 often be a dark spot on the landscape. 



We will suppose that you see a deer at last. It is 

 nearly a third of a mile away, but you discover it with 

 your glass browsing from a little bush near the top of 

 another ridge. You decide at once that it is a hope- 

 lessly long shot, and that your only hope of a close 

 shot is a detour of half a mile or so to the other side 

 of the crest of the ridge above the deer. 



This detour you quickly make; but on peeping 

 carefully over you see no deer. But you do see about 

 two dozen small bushes, and each one of them maybe 

 the bush by which you saw the deer, and it may be 

 behind any one of them. Here arises your first 

 trouble from want of patience. You were so anxious 

 to get a shot that you did not have patience to mark 

 the exact bush at which you saw the deer. You did 

 not even notice that there were any other bushes 

 there. You merely saw a hill-side and a deer and 

 started off. 



You look at every bush; they all look small and 

 low; you see no deer at any of them; and you con- 

 clude that the deer moved off while you were coming 

 around. You take a few steps and come up on the 

 ridge for a better view. And you get it at once. But 

 it is a rapidly dissolving view of a low-scudding spike- 

 buck, so low that he does not even appear above the 



