THE TAMING OF OL’ BUCK 201 
prosperous a hundred years ago, but later slid 
down to the valleys when the railroads came, leav- 
ing mostly the shiftless, the infirm, the feeble- 
minded, to repopulate the hills. So far as the 
hills have been repopulated—which isn’t very far 
—it has been by the shiftless, the weak-willed, the 
feeble-minded. The result to-day is the Hill 
Billy. 
Now, some Hill Billies catch woodchucks along 
in August, when they are well-grown and fat, and 
salt down the meat in barrels, for winter con- 
sumption. Why not? The meat tastes “as 
good as chicken,” they say. But that is neither 
here nor there. What matters just now is that 
other Hill Billies are partial to venison, and there 
is only one game warden to a great many square 
miles of wild country. It’s risky, of course, but 
life at best is a risky proposition. So all the salt 
put out in the upland pastures isn’t for the rang- 
ing cattle, and Wilbur Bailey, being shy on am- 
munition and still shyer on cash, as well as on 
brains, as you may infer, refrained from shaving 
for the sixth consecutive morning and went out to 
a certain dim deer run he knew of, on his ancestral 
