126 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



feeding everywhere about the surrounding glades, and I 

 was soon within easy shot of two fair bucks. But second- 

 chiss had no charm for me now, and we certainly wanted 

 not for meat ; so after watching these into the timber, and 

 studying for a while the graceful does and fawns as they 

 retired leisurely from the sunlight, I returned to the big 

 fellow, now dead. Though the date was as late as 

 September 22, his wide-stretching horns still carried their 

 velvet, which I account for by the fact that the ground 

 he frequented was the topmost and coolest ridge of the 

 Rockies, his death having taken place within 200 or 300 

 yards of the divide. Thus he had probably not shed his 

 old horns until summer, and the velvet would not have 

 been rubbed off his new ones until the winter. All the 

 buck we shot, or saw, on the lower ridges had their horns 

 already cleaned and polished. This head I left in 

 America, to be set up as it stood in the velvet. An hour's 

 hard work in the growing sun it gave John and myself to 

 remove the head in fit form for mounting, to clean our 

 deer, and to lift and fix him upon our sixteen-hand mule. 

 The carcase alone, fat nearly as that of a seal, could not have 

 weighed less than 250 lbs.; and you who have tried, know 

 how limp and unwieldy is the carcase of a deer just killed. 



But we brought him into camp intact, for our own 

 satisfaction, and for the inspection of the rival outfit, just 

 breakfasting. For our meal we had his liver, to my 

 mind the choicest morsel of a Western deer, and certainly 

 the most edible until the flesh has hung for some days. 

 No danger, in this pure, clean air, of its spoiling even in the 

 sun. Hung above the ground, the outside quickly hardens 

 till not a tiy can penetrate, while the inner, meat ripens and 

 grows tender day by day. 



The obstinacy which at times assails a hunter as to 

 bringing in his spoils is not unfamiliar to most who have 

 toiled and roughed it in pursuit of sport. It is but a sign 

 and a part of the dogged perseverance that alone often 

 leads to success. An instance was furnished me one 

 dusky evening by my usual companion Jim. I could 

 scarcely ride a well-beaten game -track in the gloomy 

 twilight. " How do you make your way after dark in 



