THE MULE AND WHITE-TAILED DEER 
with many small points. Aiming very carefully, I fired and saw the deer 
start and drop its head. On rushing forward I could hear it smashing 
through the dense timber below, where all sound soon ceased. Jack said 
my bullet had gone through its right ear. The next day I was luckier, 
and getting an easy shot at a good buck managed to kill it as it stood 
“ at gaze.” It had fair horns with the usual ten points. After a period of 
ill-success we moved higher up the mountains and found the mule deer 
frequenting dense forests, where they were very difficult either to see 
or shoot. One evening we surprised a small herd near timber line at 
11,000 feet, and as they completely lost their heads and ran around us I 
was able to get an easy shot at the buck and secure it. 
After many attempts to secure a really good buck Jack and I at last 
saw one in the timber below our camp and, creeping through the wind- 
falls, I got a somewhat difficult shot as it stood amongst the trees. At the 
report the deer vanished and I thought I had missed it, but Jack soon found 
blood on the trail and followed it with considerable skill. We were never 
very far behind the wounded animal, which kept moving in circles ahead of 
us, but the forest of pines was so dense that it was not possible to obtain 
a shot at a distance of over thirty yards, and try as hard as we would we 
could not drive the wounded animal into more open ground. After half 
an hour’s following up and ‘‘jumping ” the buck (whose shoulder was 
broken) several times we at last got very near to it, and as it was now 
becoming exhausted I managed to run downhill to a somewhat open place 
and cut it off as it hobbled into the thick cover again. Here it stood for 
a moment and gave me a snapshot, when I rolled it over. The head was 
somewhat narrow, but thick and furnished with twenty points, a somewhat 
unusual number, but, though a fine specimen, it did not compare favourably 
with the grand head I had missed during our first days of hunting. I should 
like to have all those chances again and to possess my good Mannlicher for 
the time. The mistakes of youth are always the most bitter. Yet, with all 
those errors, the time was a very happy one, for in after years we do not 
remember the moments of disappointment, but only the springtime of life 
in the glorious mountains, the crystal torrents and the scented wood fires. 
Such few successes as one had were very sweet and more highly valued 
than subsequent conquests over the beasts of the field when experience 
makes a man more skilled. 
The White -tailed Deer is still, as it has always been, the most plentiful 
of American big game. It survives, not only because it is fairly well 
311 
