TO MANAGE A DEER WHEN HIT. 269 



what I could say about it, and by the time you have 

 killed a few deer you v/ill readily pardon me for spend- 

 ing most of my time in telling you how to shoot one 

 instead of what to do with it after being shot. 



Nevertheless there are just a few points that I will 

 mention by way of saving you needless work. 



It is considered style to charge on a fallen deer with 

 a " hunting-knife" and " cut its throat." All the hunt- 

 ing-knife you need is a common round-pointed jack- 

 knife. Everything else is a nuisance except as a 

 butcher-knife or cleaver at camp. If the deer is not 

 dead, finish him with a ball in the head, and let his 

 throat alone or you may get in sudden trouble. If 

 he is dead his throat needs no cutting, as a dead ani- 

 mal bleeds only a trifle from the throat. If you mean 

 to open him at once you can give him no better bleed- 

 ing than opening. If you wish to run on for another 

 deer, stick the dead one in the chest and turn him 

 with head down hill. 



Covering up a deer with brush, snow, etc., especially 

 if you leave some article of clothing upon it, will 

 protect it from all animals and birds about as well as 

 hanging up, unless you hang it very high. And this 

 latter is no easy thing for one person to do, unless he 

 packs a hatchet to cut forked sticks with large enough 

 to prop up a good sapling. But with two such sticks, 

 one being longer than the other, a bent sapling with 

 a deer fastened to it can, by working them alternately, 

 be run up quite high. Hanging by the head protects 

 from birds but exposes the hams to animals, and vice 

 versa. The inner bark of the basswood makes good 

 rope, but the skin of the lower part of the deer's legs 

 cut in strips is better and easier to get. This is also 

 good to tie a deer to the rings of the saddle-girth. 



