ROCKIES IX SEPTEMBER 139 



hunters were in the neii:;hboin"hood. Then, dippin<4 into 

 the valley on the homeward track, we rode through park 

 after park of undulating beauty — the grass and weeds, as 

 usual, saddle-high, amid the scattered trees. Deer became 

 more numerous as we reached the lower ground and the 

 vicinity of its creek. I had not intended to shoot, having 

 ridden out only to explore new^ ground. But, as a band 

 of deer sauntered through the timber about 150 yards 

 away, it was impossible not to notice two good heads — 

 impossible not to aim at the bearer of the bigger. To pull 

 the trigger was only one degree more, and a grand buck 

 fell to the report, shot high up behind the shoulder. 

 " Satisfactory — very ! " I commented, right well pleased 

 that I had held thus steady from the saddle, and equally 

 well pleased when meat and head had been duly packed 

 and conveyed to camp. 



Our arrival there was heralded in rather laughable 

 fashion. A few hundred yards before' reaching it we dis- 

 turbed a fine heavy buck. He looked magnificent, as 

 with great striding bounds he carried his wide-spread 

 antlers away through the forest — here a sloping park 

 studded with climips of magnificent timber. " He's going 

 straight into camp ! " I hazarded, little knowing how 

 literally the surmise was being fulfilled. A few minutes 

 afterwards we found all loose horses and mules flocking at 

 full gallop to their tethered comrades, while John, the cook, 

 and Phil, the horse-w^-angler, were screaming with laughter 

 and blazing their pistols into the trees in sheer wantonness. 

 The buck, it seems, had shied aw^ay from the " stock " 

 picketed on the choice grass hard by — to find himself by 

 this manoeuvre between the tents and the camp fire, and 

 hemmed in by the miscellaneous impedimenta scattered 

 round. The boys were busy upon their customary after- 

 noon vocation — to wit, "lying around," a part of their 

 duties that, more often than not, was enacted to the 

 accompaniment of gun-cleaning, firing at a mark, or such 

 like recreation giving them command of a weapon at hand. 

 But on this particular occasion neither rifle nor six-shooter 

 was within reach when the buck jumped thus unceremoni- 

 ously into camp. John rushed for our tent, where the little 



