American Big Game in its Haunts 



of the year. This is the one athletic contest into 

 which they enter heart and soul ; it is foot-ball and 

 yachting and polo and horse racing combined. 

 For a young man to go into the forest after deer 

 and to come back empty-handed, is to lose prestige 

 to a certain extent among his fellows. Oftentimes, 

 when a beginner returns in this way unsuccessful, 

 he is so unmercifully chaffed by his companions 

 that he mentally records a vow not to be beaten a 

 second time, and, when he finds himself again in 

 the forest for his annual hunt, with the enthusiasm 

 of youth, he would almost rather die than be 

 defeated. 



How hard the conditions are for the hunter no 

 one would believe who has not himself seen the 

 country. In many places the hills are covered 

 with an almost impenetrable chaparral of scrub 

 oak, buckthorn, greasewood, manzanita, and deer- 

 brush, in which the wary deer have taken refuge. 

 In and through these, guided sometimes by the 

 tracks of the deer, or encouraged by the presence 

 of such tracks even if he cannot follow them, up 

 steep mountains, exposed to the heat of the sun, in 

 dust, over rocks, and without water, toils the 

 hunter, who accounts himself lucky if, by tramp- 

 ing scores of miles through this sort of impedi- 

 ment, he succeeds, after days of toil, in killing his 



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