382 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 



good housewife was anxiously watching the result. But when 

 she saw the game gracefully bounding away, her hopes of veni- 

 son nearly died out. Soon the deer passed close by the house, 

 when in her excitement, she started after it as if she intended to 

 run it down in a fair field. As she was a large, fat body, though 

 ycung, healthy, and powerful, this to the average hunter might 

 have seemed a desperate undertaking, and probably the act itself 

 was solely one of impulse. However fortune kindl)^ favored her, 

 for in a few leaps, the deer plunged into the excavation just de- 

 scribed, which had a vertical wall on the opposite side, which the 

 deer failed to scale, and fell back. The excited woman compre- 

 hended lier chance at a glance, and rushed down the inclined 

 way, seized the deer by the hind legs and held it, till the husband, 

 hastened by her outcry, ran up and ended the scuffle with his 

 hunting knife. This great feat made the woman a heroine, the 

 cause of which she could long years after relate to her grand- 

 children. 



Now this was looked upon by those old, experienced hunters 

 as scarcely less than a miracle, for with the attributes they 

 had always ascribed to the deer, it should have kicked her to 

 death, or at least freed itself from her in an instant ; and so it 

 would have done, had she seized but one of the hind legs, for 

 with either hind foot loose it would have made bloody work with 

 the adversary. My own experience shows that a man can readily 

 hold a deer if he can seize both hind legs at once ; but if he 

 grasps but one, he must let it go immediately, or he will be sure 

 to suffer. When the hind legs are well stretched out, and not 

 allowed to touch the ground, the animal is almost powerless. He 

 is always urging himself forward as much as possible with his 

 fore legs, and unless the man holding him is so light that he can 

 draw him up, he has no purchase with his hind legs, and cannot 

 kick at all. It is the rapidity of the muscular action of the deer 

 that makes it appear so strong. Its motions are so very quick, 

 that it is the most unmanageable animal of its actual strength I 

 have ever encountered, if it can but get a chance to act. I have 

 seen two men try to force a pet yearling deer into a park from 

 which it had escaped, by their carelessly leaving the gate open, 

 when their clothes would fly off in shreds. Two strong men, 

 with a strap around the deer's neck, can do it ; but they have no 

 leisure to do anything else at the same time. Either one of them 

 could have walked right away with it by the hind legs. I have 

 found this the easiest way to handle the Common Deer when 

 castrating. 



I 



