THE COLUMBIA BLACK-TAILED DEER. 127 



but they go out of sight unscathed. However, it is just 

 as well, for he has meat enough and to spare. He is happy, 

 for he has again pitted his cunning against that of the 

 wildest and most wary animal on the earth, and is again the 

 winner. 



Probably the best arm to hunt Black- tailed Deer with 

 is the 44-caliber repeating-rifle. Some hunters use the 45- 

 caliber, while others will use nothing but a 32-caliber. It 

 seems to me, however, that the 45-caliber is better adapted 

 to Moose or Elk shooting; and I am satisfied that if the 

 hunter armed with nothing but a 32-caliber rifle should 

 meet with a Grizzly or Cinnamon Bear, he would feel rather 

 uncomfortable. He would then wish, most devoutly, for a 

 more powerful weapon. 



Of the many pjaces in which it has been my good fort- 

 une to hunt Deer, I think the locality in which I found 

 game most abundant, and where the climate and scenery 

 combined to make the most pleasant hunting-ground, is in 

 the Cascade Mountains, in Oregon. The region of which I 

 speak more particularly is about forty miles east of Cot- 

 tage Grove, a small village in the Willamette Valley. This 

 region is the great water-shed of Oregon. Here it is that 

 the Willamette and Umpqua. Rivers, on one side, and 

 the Deschutes River, on the other side, have their begin- 

 nings. 



As the reader is doubtless aware, there are many high 

 and beautiful, snow-peaks in the Cascade Range; but the 

 region of which I write consists of a plateau, the altitude of 

 which is between eight and ten thousand feet above the 

 level of the sea. Here the snow lies, on the north side of 

 the hills, during the entire summer, and the vegetation 

 partakes of an Arctic nature. In the valleys there is some 

 fine timber, but upon the higher portions of the plateau the 

 vegetation is stunted. 



Here one will find small trees growing almost on a level 

 with the ground. The weight of the snow has pressed 

 them down, so that, instead of growing up straight, as they 

 should have done, they consist of but a short trunk and a 



