174 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



Of course, some may be seen in either pla«e, but in the 

 mountains it will be quite accidental. In the lower hills, 

 along the coast, it is not so difficult to see game; but in the 

 mountains I have hunted a whole week, getting before day- 

 break on a point that would command a wide range of 

 brush and open ground, and going again in the afternoon 

 and remaining until dark, but, even with the aid of a good 

 glass, could see no Deer. Yet there were plenty of fresh 

 tracks on all the open places. 



At other times, I have at daylight taken tracks not half 

 an hour old, and followed them rapidly in a desperate 

 attempt to overtake the Deer, whether I got a shot or not. 

 But in a few hundred yards they would turn down into 

 some deep, dark ravine, bristling with tremendous chap- 

 arral, or into some perfect sea of brush along some hill- 

 side. In either case, no amount of noise would move them. 

 He who would hunt at this time of year— the time, too, 

 when the bucks and yearlings are in the best condition — 

 must remember this habit of retirement. 



They can undoubtedly be driven from the brush by dogs, 

 but without them you would do little along the coast, and 

 much less in the mountains. There are, however, a few 

 sections in which they remain secluded a much shorter time 

 than in others, but you will find few who can tell you where 

 they are. But you need listen to no talk about the Deer 

 being "all at the coast," or "all gone to the mountains," 

 as in each place they think they are gone because they do 

 not see them. The fact is, that the coast is as good as the 

 mountains; Deer are always there, and an observant person 

 can find the tracks of the same Deer there all the time. 



Some Deer will skulk and hide in the brush at any time 

 of year, and the Deer that ran away from you yester- 

 day may to-day stand or lie still in brush and let you pass 

 within a few yards of him. So, too, a Deer may spring two 

 hundred yards away and run like any Deer, then suddenly 

 turn into a piece of brush and hide there. 



Deer sometimes lie amazingly close. I once tracked a 

 doe and two fawns about a mile and a half through brush 



