HUNTING THE RED DEER AT 3 
considers ’em as anything more’n a big 
kind of rabbit that jumps up and makes 
off out o’ sightiin the brush. Yes, jest 
like a rabbit, reg’lar jumpin’ jacks, derned 
hard t’ shoot, an’ no size when you get 
’em.”” From the sportsman’s point of 
view the woodman’s conclusion was in- 
correct; for those plain words point out 
just why the chase of the whitetail offers 
the very finest of sport. 
Personally, I believe that of all our ant- 
lered game the whitetail, when sought for 
in the proper manner, that is, by still- 
hunting, should rank first as a game animal, 
because the greatest degree of skill is 
required in hunting it. The big-horn 
sheep, the wapiti and the black-tailed deer 
‘are generally found when wandering over 
rocky, sparsely timbered hills, or through 
open glades in the mountains where cover 
is scanty. The prong-buck prefers the 
wide plains or bad lands; while the caribou 
in most localities frequents comparatively 
open regions. For all such hunting great 
physical hardihood and endurance are 
required. The hunter must be able to 
walk many miles over a rough country. 
He should have a far-seeing rather than a 
quick eye; and possess a certain knowledge 
ot stalking and good judgment in sighting 
a rifle at long range, generally at a motion- 
less or slowly moving target. But in 
seeking the whitetail in the thick, brushy 
timber, far different qualities are required: 
silence, stealth, intensity, wonderful alert- 
ness, an ear that knows the meaning of 
faintly snapping twigs, an eye trained to 
differentiate instantly a patch of a deer’s 
gray body from bushes partly concealing 
it; and finally a rifle that springs up quick- 
ly for a snap shot at an object flitting off 
among the tree trunks. 
The difficulty with which whitetails are 
sometimes hunted is well illustrated by a 
trip which I took early one September to 
the region just north of Long lake in the 
Adirondacks. In our immediate locality 
deer were not plentiful, and shy from much 
shooting. Still the signs seemed pretty 
good and we resolved to try a week of still- 
hunting. There were no ponds nor wild 
meadows round camp; no old tote-roads, 
nor any of those favorite loitering places, 
where one has merely to watch carefully 
in the early morning to see adeer. On the 
other hand, the underbrush and _ foliage 
grew so densely that walking quietly or 
seeing ahead for any distance was quite 
impossible. For five days I stole through 
those woods from sunrise until dark as 
carefully and noiselessly as I could. Several 
times I came upon a fresh trail, with tracks 
deeply imprinted and far apart, showing 
plainly enough where a deer had bounded 
off at my approach. Twice I heard the 
“blow” of a startled animal in the bushes 
not two hundred yards away; and once I 
saw the foliage moving ahead, as one quietly 
stole away from its bed under an old wind- 
fall. Yet during those five days I failed 
to catch a single glimpse of game. Still- 
hunting had failed, for, under such condi- 
tions as these, the chances were all in favor 
of the deer. 
On the sixth and last day I resolved to 
trust in patience and try watching. A mile 
or so from camp a little knoll overlooked 
two or three acres of low, scrubby bush. 
The fact that two big runways intersected 
in the center of this open patch, together 
with the great number of nipped twig ends, 
indicated that deer fed there frequently. 
I sat on that knoll watching all day, from 
sunrise, and was about to give it up when 
suddenly directly before me in the very 
center of the open patch a deer appeared 
feeding quietly. The woodland silence 
was intense, yet I did not hear it come. 
Although watching carefully at the time, I 
did not see it approach. Like an apparition 
it had suddenly appeared in the open glade. 
But when deer-hunting, one learns in time 
to expect the unexpected, the mysterious; 
to look for strange, swift movements in the 
shadows, or the sudden appearance of an 
animal in among the tree trunks right 
ahead, as if it had sprung from the very 
ground. Whoever heard the footsteps of a 
feeding deer? What hunter ever saw half 
the bucks that sneaked off, with backward, 
furtive glances at his approach? Shooting 
that deer in the Adirondacks that September 
day, although it proved but a two-year-old, 
gave me more genuine satisfaction than any 
animal I have ever killed, because it was 
the hardest to get. To this day I wonder 
if it really approached that open glade at 
all; if it were not quietly lying down 
