388 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



* 



there are many others which have been necessarily 

 omitted for want of space. On the whole, you cannot 

 be too careful how you draw conclusions from a few 

 instances. 



Sound principle often requires the entire disregard 

 of a rule. Five times out of six it is useless to follow 

 up a deer once started. Yet if deer are extremely 

 scarce or you wish to go on the course the deer has 

 gone, you had better follow him by all means. So 

 when a single deer plunges into a very brushy hill- 

 side the chances are very strong that you will see him 

 no more. But it will cost you nothing to stand two 

 or three minutes and watch for his appearance at 

 some open place. And once in five or six times you 

 may see him again and get a good shot. 



Other things must.be decided solely upon common- 

 sense. A man with hobnailed boots, bright-colored 

 clothes, and big flop-hat gets as much game as one 

 who wears moccasins, clothes of neutral color, and a 

 small cap. Judging solely by visible results the one 

 outfit is as good as the other. Yet your common- 

 sense alone is enough to tell you that the latter outfit 

 must be the best, and that the want of difference in 

 results must be due to other causes. 



In scarcely any branch of life is one more apt to 

 draw wrong conclusions from hasty observation than 

 in hunting deer and antelope and shooting with the 

 rifle. Passing over the whole host of absurd and 

 contradictory theories held by good hunters and good 

 shots, who either do not follow them in practice, or, 

 if they do, succeed in spite of them by virtue of their 

 other qualifications, I will mention a remarkable case 

 of two gross errors resulting in success. 



A friend of mine had a rifle which he fully believed 



