170 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



repair for drink, and be back to their foraging-grounds on 

 the heights by morning. Such are our animals' haunts, 

 habits, and home. Consequently, I was not at all surprised 

 to come into one of these vast canons, which would never 

 be suspected eighty rods away, and where, probably, some 

 animals from the bands I had disturbed had come for relief 

 and shelter. It proved so. I had come into the canon by 

 a circuit on lower ground, and was passing carelessly over 

 a bed of shale, when I saw an enormous buck — doubtless 

 the one of the day before — coming quartering past me. He 

 saw me, wheeled for another canon and disappeared. At 

 this season, given a patriarchal buck, a band of does is 

 not far off. In the summer, I should have mourned over 

 this old fellow, with two inches of fat on his brisket, and 

 weighing a good three hundred and fifty pounds. Now, I 

 mourn him not, with his swollen neck, his tainted body, 

 but welcome him in his flight as my guide to a band of does 

 that I do want. 



I crossed the divide, clambered down the shady side of 

 the ravine where he had disappeared, and had just reached 

 the bottom and stooped for a drink from the unfailing canon 

 stream, when, up on the extreme brow of the other side of 

 the ravine, was passing swiftly a band of does. They 

 stopped. I was making a choice for a shot, when, glancing 

 ahead, there seemed, through the thick brush, the mere 

 form of a Deer far larger than any in open sight — so dim 

 that it was a mere suggestion, and indistinct at that. If it 

 were a Deer at all, I could only hit her through the thick 

 brush, and small limbs are proverbial for deflecting a 

 bullet. But my 100-graih Sharp was a power even for 

 twigs, and so far it had stood me in good stead; 1 had 

 only missed once in all these weeks, and that was in 

 doing the "pumping" act. I will stake it on the form and 

 the Sharps, and fire through the brush. 



Always, in these bands, there seems not only a ruling 

 buck, but a leading doe, far larger than the rest. It had 

 been my fortune, thus far, in almost every instance, to get 

 this leading doe. It was so now. She was on the extreme 



