The Mule-deer 59 



in climbing and walking through the rugged hills, 

 keeping a sharp lookout for our game. Only too 

 often we were seen before we ourselves saw the 

 quarry, and even when this was not the case, the 

 stalks were sometimes failures. Still blank days 

 were not very common. Probably every hunter 

 remembers with pride some particular stalk. I 

 recall now outwitting a big buck which I had seen 

 and failed to get on two successive days. He was 

 hanging about a knot of hills with brush on their 

 shoulders, and was not only very watchful, but 

 when he lay down always made his bed at the 

 lower end of a brush patch, whence he could see 

 into the valley below, while it was impossible to 

 approach him from above, through the brush, with- 

 out giving the alarm. On the third day I saw 

 him early in the morning, while he was feeding. 

 He was very watchful, and I made no attempt to 

 get near him, simply peeping at him until he 

 finally went into a patch of thin brush and lay 

 down. As I knew what he was I could distinctly 

 make him out. If I had not seen him go in, I 

 certainly never would have imagined that he was 

 a deer, even had my eyes been able to pick him 

 out at all among the gray shadows and small dead 

 tree-tops. Having waited until he was well settled 

 down, I made a very long turn and came up behind 

 him, only to find that the direction of the wind 

 and the slope of the hill rendered it an absolute 



