32 Deer and Antelope of North America 



As long as the good citizens of a state are indif- 

 ferent as to game protection, or take but a tepid 

 interest in it, the politicians, through their agents, 

 will leave the game laws unenforced. But if the 

 people of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana come 

 to feel the genuine interest in the enforcement of 

 these laws that the people of Maine and Vermont 

 have grown to take during the past twenty years, 

 not only will the mule-deer cease to diminish, 

 but it will positively increase. It is a mistake 

 to suppose that such a change would only be to 

 the advantage of well-to-do sportsmen. Men who 

 are interested in hunting for hunting's sake, men 

 who come from the great cities remote from the 

 mountains in order to get three or four weeks' 

 healthy, manly holiday, would undoubtedly be 

 benefited ; but the greatest benefit would be to 

 the people of the localities, and of the neighbor- 

 hoods round about. The presence of the game 

 would attract outsiders who would leave in the 

 country money or its equivalent, which would 

 many times surpass in value the game they 

 actually killed ; and furthermore, the preservation 

 of the game would mean that the ranchmen and 

 grangers who live near its haunts would have 

 in peipetuity the chance of following the pleas- 

 antest and healthiest of all out-of-door pastimes ; 

 whereas, if through their shortsightedness they 

 destroy, or permit to be destroyed, the game, they 



