2i 8 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



I was expecting as much to see a mule-deer as a white- 

 tail. When the game was plentiful I would often stay 

 on my horse until the moment of obtaining the shot, espe- 

 cially if it was in the early morning or late evening. My 

 method then was to ride slowly and quietly down the 

 winding valleys and across the spurs, hugging the bank, 

 so that, if deer were feeding in the open, I would get 

 close up before either of us saw the other. Sometimes 

 the deer would halt for a moment when it saw me, and 

 sometimes it would bound instantly away. In either case 

 my chance lay in the speed with which I could jump 

 off the horse and take my shot. Even in favorable locali- 

 ties this method was of less avail with whitetail than 

 mule-deer, because the former were so much more apt 

 to skulk. 



As soon as game became less plentiful my hunting had 

 to be done on foot. My object was to be on the hunting- 

 ground by dawn, or else to stay out there until it grew 

 too dark to see the sights of my rifle. Often all I did 

 was to keep moving as quietly as possible through likely 

 ground, ever on the alert for the least trace of game; 

 sometimes I would select a lookout and carefully scan 

 a likely country to see if I could not detect something 

 moving. On one occasion I obtained an old whitetail 

 buck by the simple exercise of patience. I had twice 

 found him in a broad basin, composed of several coulees, 

 all running down to form the head of a big creek, and 

 all of them well timbered. He dodged me on both occa- 

 sions, and I made up my mind that I would spend a 

 whole day in watching for him from a little natural 



