484 
Forest and Stream 
self and my brother. Though he was 
completely crippled, he managed to keep 
that distance until he reached water. 
This he swam, and thus he escaped. 
However, a week later he was found by 
a negro, who brought my brother his 
magnificent antlers. . . . The point of 
the story, however, is this : as the buck 
was making off painfullly he had his tail 
mashed in tight against his haunches, and 
at every effort the tip of it would be 
flicked like that of a goat. . . . Both my 
brother and I were of the opinion that 
such a tail-motion was an infallible sign 
of a serious, probably mortal, wound. 
It often happens that a deer when shot 
at will stop ; but he will not stop thus 
if he is hit. I knew a deer to come out 
to a green stander and actually to pose 
on a little hillock in front of him. At 
the first barrel the deer simply wheeled 
around, presenting the other broadside. 
Of course, I am not saying that all 
deer are so considerate of the amateur 
hunter. It also happens that when two 
deer are running together and one is 
A double shot on spike-horn bucks 
handle the biggest buck if the distance is 
at all reasonable and if the aim of the 
hunter is decent. . . . But regarding the 
rifle, I must add that man}" friends of 
mine who use it for deer tell me that, 
while they can usually discern, on ac- 
count of the bullet’s heavy shocking 
power, whether at deer has been struck, 
there is always the possibility that a deer 
will carry a rifle-wound with apparently 
as much unconcern as he bears away a 
wound from a shotgun. 
often it is not. Some hunters claim that 
if a deer slaps down his tail at the crack 
of the gun or of the rifle he is reached; 
but on a good many occasions I have 
seen mortally wounded deer sail off in 
grand and standard style. Some of these 
were actually shot through the heart. 
In more than one instance I have myself 
seen deer run with normal grace and 
vigor for a distance of a hundred yards, 
though shot clear through the heart. If 
a deer blunders when you fire, the 
chances are that you have spoken the 
message to him. Some hunters say that 
if he changes his step he is struck. I 
once was told by my brother of a curious 
experience he had with a master buck. 
Seven deer came out to him, and it 
was necessary for him to do some select- 
ing. First, of course, he chose the old 
herd-buck, or what the English call the 
hart-royal. The open barrel accounted 
for him; the choke barrel took care of 
a forky-horn as the herd swept wildly 
past through the broom-grass of the level 
pineland. But at the second barrel the 
old man of the forest recovered himself. 
He got up off the ground and made a 
run of some fifty yards, putting a dis- 
tance of a hundred yards between him- 
A trophy from the swamp 
driver, came’ dashing up 
on horseback. I had the 
keenest desire just then 
for foreign travel ; China 
seemed to appeal to me. 
“Dat’s the grandpa 
old buck,” the driver 
said; “I hope you is done 
darken he eye.” 
Though there was not 
much hope in his voice, 
he honored me by dis- 
mounting and looking 
for blood - signs. Sud- 
denly he cried out and fell on his knees 
in the pine-straw. 
“You hit him!” he cried. Then, be- 
cause by nature he was more Indian than 
negro, he whirled himself on his horse 
and was gone like a shot after the dogs. 
“I can’t hear the hounds,” father said. 
“Son, I believe they have him.” 
Half a mile from where I had shot we 
found the buck stone-dead ; the hounds 
were lolling about in self-satisfied tri- 
umph. Since that day I have hunted 
deer more or less continuously, and have 
had some rewards ; but the thrill of 
that moment when we gathered about 
the fallen monarch has never been ap- 
proached. The first deer seems somehow 
to belong to a very much superior race 
to all the other deer that a man in a life- 
time of hunting takes. 
T he behavior of this buck in running, 
apparently unhurt, for so great a dis- 
tance constitutes one of the mysteries of 
all deer-hunting. It is sometimes pos- 
sible to tell when a deer is struck, but 
Changing the luck on a Southern deer hunt 
side shot The deer would pass on my 
right ; I leveled my gun on an aperture 
between two tall rosemary pines. Sud- 
denly the great buck launched himself 
into the opening. I fired. ... To my 
unutterable chagrin, through the wall of 
smoke that my black powder hdd thrown 
up, I descried both bucks serenely con- 
tinuing their masterful march. The dogs 
then stormed by me like a living whirl- 
wind. In a few moments the two old 
deer hunters, my father and the negro 
shot down the -other may stop within a 
short distance, waiting for its comrade. 
Some hunters are deceived by this matter 
into believing that the one shot has killed 
one deer and crippled the second. If, 
after being shot at, deer separate, the 
chances are that one has been hit. Yet 
I have seen two old beautiful bucks run 
together for half an hour and then de- 
cide to separate, probably thinking such 
a maneuver a puzzler for the hounds. 
W HAT I have said concerning the 
effect of shot upon deer, and their 
remarkable capacity for carrying, some- 
times, a deadly wound without showing 
it, applies particularly to buckshot. Even 
a hunter ought to be truthful; and I ad- 
mit that I have not hunted deer much 
with a rifle. In fact, there is a distinct 
tendency nowadays to return to the shot- 
gun for deer. Massachusetts and New 
Jersey demand it; throughout the South 
the shotgun is used because of the level 
nature of the country and because the 
woods and swamps are so dense that 
shots really out of gunshot range are not 
often afforded. There is strong senti- 
ment in Pennsylvania now for a law in- 
sisting upon the shotgun. I believe that 
no State would lose by its adoption; it 
certainly is, for man, a 
less deadly weapon than 
the high-power rifle ; and 
for deer it is sufficiently 
hard-hitting. The popu- 
lar theory that a shotgun 
is too light for deer is un- 
sound. A long-barreled 
gun properly loaded will 
