SPORT AND TRAVEL 281 



of where he had been struck. The bullet had entered 

 just behind his shoulder, and ranging forwards had 

 come out on the other side near the base of the neck, 

 tearing a large hole through the heart and lungs on 

 its passage. 



This was a fine buck mule deer with a pretty head 

 of nine points. He was in splendid condition, the 

 fat on his rump and over his loins being more than 

 an inch thick. The meat was first rate, without the 

 least suspicion of the rank flavour always perceptible 

 in the meat of a buck mule deer as soon as it has 

 commenced to rut. From subsequent observations 

 I am quite sure that in this particular year, 1898, 

 and in the particular part of the country in which 

 I was then hunting the mountains to the east of 

 the Yellowstone Park the mule deer bucks did not 

 commence to rut before the middle of November. 

 We carried the head, inside fat, and some of the meat 

 of the slain deer back to camp with us, after having 

 buried the remainder of the carcass under the snow. 



II 



DURING the next few days we found the fresh 

 tracks of wapiti bulls almost daily, and followed them 

 for many hours, but always without result, for though 

 we must always have got very near them, they in- 

 variably heard or winded us in the thick timber with- 

 out our catching sight of them, and I began to despair 



