42 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



me. And looking from the deer's bed to my own po- 

 sition at the time he sprang showed plainly that lie 

 could not have seen me even had he been standing 

 instead of lying down as he was doing. Lie down 

 upon the ground in the woods some still day about 

 the time of your companion's return to camp and see 

 how far you can hear his footsteps even with your 

 dull ears. 



Even when the long practiced and moccasined foot 

 falls on the ground as softly as snow, even when the 

 leaves or twigs are softened with long rain, there is a 

 faint crushing, packing sound that acute ears can 

 hear along the ground a long distance. And the 

 lightest snow, if of any depth, makes a faint grinding 

 noise as it packs beneath the foot. So they will hear 

 at a long distance the snapping or brushing of twigs 

 against your clothes and the switching sound in the 

 air as you let them fly back. These latter are, how- 

 ever, not so apt to alarm a deer lying down as sounds 

 from the feet, though the other sounds may be the 

 more audible to you. 



Deer know, too, as well as a man the distance of 

 sounds, and also their character, and are rarely de- 

 ceived. They will often lie all day within plain hear- 

 ing of the noises of a settler's cabin, the sound of the 

 ax, and the lurid vocabulary of the teamster in the 

 " pinery." The crash of a squirrel's jump, the roar of 

 thunder, the snapping of trees with frost, their creak- 

 ing or falling in the wind, generally does not alarm 

 them in the least. Yet the faint pressing of the leaves 

 beneath the feet, or the crack of a twig a hundred 

 yards or more away, may send them flying. 



The direction of noise, however, often perplexes 

 deer. And in their perfectly natural state their curi- 



