Old Times in the Black Hills 



stock. I considered this the best all-round 

 sporting-rifle I had ever owned. I was three 

 hundred miles from a gunsmith, virtually un- 

 armed, and carrying my life in my hand. 



An examination of the dead buck proved 

 him indeed a grand specimen. He had eight 

 points to each antler, and their condition and 

 his numerous scars proved conclusively that 

 he had ever been willing to defend his title as 

 monarch of the woods. I never would have 

 believed that any deer could attain so large 

 a size, and though I have hunted them from 

 Arizona to Montana, I have never seen his 

 equal either as to size or condition. This 

 fact determined me to carry him into camp 

 whole ; in fact, I had no other alternative, 

 being without a knife. I found the task of 

 cutting his throat with sharp pieces of slate a 

 tedious one indeed, and I had a terrible tim.e 

 getting the carcass on " Coffee," who, al- 

 though the best packhorse I ever saw, had 

 never overcome his horror of a dead animal, 

 and did not even relish the rabbits I had 

 strapped on him at noon. It may seem a 

 simple thing, but I found loading that buck 

 without assistance one of the hardest tasks I 



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