THE MULE DEER. 151 



An hour more of slow, careful search, and no result; 

 when suddenly Tige strains on his leash; Dash draws ahead, - 

 and stands a-point. Bates whispers: 



"There's a Deer within twenty feet of us." 



It bounds from our very side; rushes down a Deer-path 

 for the woods below. I raise my rifle to fire when it shall 

 clear some large tree-trunks, when Bates throws up his 

 Burgess, fires a clear snap-shot, and the Deer goes head- 

 long down the hill-side, with a broken neck. It was 

 splendidly done. 



"Yes," said he; "but it was a snap-shot; I had no 

 aim." 



" So much the better, my boy! A rifle leveled as accu- 

 rately as that, without aim, at an animal on the jump, is a 

 better shot than the best standing-shot can possibly be." 



The Deer proved a fine two-year-old buck, in perfect 

 condition, and it made us glad. 



It was now about two o' clock in the afternoon, and Bates 

 said: 



" We are about three miles from camp; suppose we make 

 a hunt that way, and I can get the horses, and get the meat 

 to camp before dark." 



We met nothing on the way; and he repeated the trip of 

 yesterday, and I repeated the supper, over which we were 

 both as glad as before. 



The next morning, as we started out, Bates said: 



" I don't like the appearance of the sky this morning. It 

 looks as if there was going to be a fog, and that is no joke, 

 in these mountains. All peaks and headlands are obscured, 

 which are our guides at other times. The sun is hidden 

 entirely, and for a hundred miles every place is like every 

 other place, and a man is as safe to camp and remain still 

 as to stir a step— safer, ordinarily — only they may hold for 

 two or three days. But we will hunt, the forenoon, and be 

 on the watch for the mist." 



We were going on new ground, up a high, sloping ridge 

 that seemed to reach to the mountains beyond. We sep- 

 arated, for once, to come together higher up, a mile farther 



