THE CHASE. 393 



by the prairie fire. I did not halt, and gave no sign that I saw 

 him, but slowly pursued my way, bearing, however, to the left, 

 so as to get more between the deer and the timber. The position 

 of the deer commanded a view of the intervening valley. Pi'es- 

 ently he laid down in a bunch of high grass. I continued to 

 walk my horse slowly across the valley, graduallj^ drawing more 

 in the direction of the deer, he believing he was entirely con- 

 cealed, and evidently thought he had not been discovered. I ap- 

 proached the buck in a direction which would pass him not more 

 than thirty yards distant. I kept whistling a low tune all the 

 way, and assumed as careless an attitude and action as I could, 

 appearing always to look in another direction, though now and 

 then a quick glance showed the great antlers, which looked like 

 a rocking chair, through the dried grass. I had for the last hun- 

 dred yards or more been changing the position of my gun, some- 

 times to my shoulder, sometimes to my left arm, and sometimes 

 to the pommel of my saddle. When I got opposite him I could 

 see the outline of his head laying flat on the ground, but the 

 body was concealed. At the proper moment I checked my horse 

 by a word, turned in the saddle, raised the gun and fired the 

 rifle, before the deer had fully made up his mind that he was dis- 

 covered, reserving the buckshot for a fairer mark in case the 

 ball missed, and he should jump up. But he did not. He 

 straightened himself out, and gave up the struggle with a few 

 spasmodic kicks. That was the largest deer killed by the party 

 during the hunt, and was a satisfactory conclusion of a fine day's 

 sport. An old buck is as cunning as a fox, but if you under- 

 stand his ways, it is possible to circumvent him, and to do so is 

 the very essence of sport. My companions were returning with 

 the wagon half a mile away, and had been watching my move- 

 ments for some time, but having seen no deer, supposed I had 

 fired to bring them that way rather than go out of my way to 

 join them, and so were reluctant to answer my signal to come. 

 But they came at last, duly admired my trophy, assisted to put 

 him on the wagon, when we all returned to camp together with 

 as fine a load as I have ever seen brought in from the prairie in a 

 single day. We were tired and hungry, no doubt, but all bore a 

 hand to hang up the deer, and in a few minutes the trees 

 around that camp were festooned in a way to make a hunter's 

 heart rejoice. After bathing the face and hands in the cool 

 spring water which burst from beneath the bank below, we 

 gathered around our venison stew, which was our favorite dish in 



