The Mule- deer 43 



They paid no heed whatever to the fences, so 

 far as I could see, and went through them at 

 will ; but they always got between the wires, or 

 went under the lowest wire. The dexterity with 

 which they did this was extraordinary. When 

 alarmed they would run full speed toward a wire 

 fence, would pass through it, often hardly alter- 

 ing their stride, and never making any marks 

 in the snow which looked as though they had 

 crawled. Twice I saw bands thus go through a 

 wire fence, once at speed, the other time when 

 they were not alarmed. On both occasions they 

 were too far off to allow me to see exactly their 

 mode of procedure, but on examining the snow 

 where they had passed, there was not the slightest 

 mark of their bodies, and the alteration in their 

 gait, as shown by the footprints, was hardly per- 

 ceptible. In one instance, however, where I scared 

 a young buck which ran over a hill and through 

 a wire fence on the other side, I found one of his 

 antlers lying beside the fence, it having evidently 

 been knocked off by the wire. Their antlers 

 were getting very loose, and toward the end of 

 our stay they had begun to shed them. 



The deer were preyed on by many foes. Sports- 

 men and hide hunters had been busy during the 

 fall migrations, and the ranchmen of the neighbor- 

 hood were shooting them occasionally for food, 

 even when we were out there. The cougars at 



