Chapter VII
Looking For Deer Lying Low

 

   Having failed to see deer on foot during their feeding or lounging time of the morning, the next best thing is to seek them where they have gone to lie down during the main part of the day. It is sometimes more easy to find them in this way than when they are on foot, though it is generally harder. It is generally so very difficult to see one in bed at all that you are mainly confined in this kind of hunting to what is known as "jumping a deer;" that is, starting him from his bed, and firing at him as he bounds away or waiting until he stops to look back a moment, as deer generally do if little disturbed.

  From the loose talk among hunters and the careless pens of writers about "jumping" deer the beginner is very apt to fancy it something like kicking up a hare from its form and rolling it over with a charge of shot as it scuds away. He is very apt to go marching confidently about expecting to see a deer hop out of any bush within twenty or thirty yards. This will occasionally happen, especially if the wind be right and the ground soft enough for silent walking. But three times out of four "jumping" a deer is what you shall soon see for yourself.

 

  When entirely undisturbed by man deer will lie down in the daytime as they do at night — almost anywhere. But even then they show a decided preference for the following kinds of ground:

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    1. The points and backs of ridges, especially if brushy.

    2. The brushy heads of little ravines and hollows.

    3. Windfalls and choppings, especially when old and brushy.

    4. Thin thickets containing fallen logs or trees.

    5. Heavy thickets without fallen logs or trees.

    6. Patches of heavy fern or willow in little valleys.

    7. Little plateaus, knobs, or terraces on hillsides. In open country in addition to the above named places, if there are any, they will take 

    8. The long grass or heavy weeds of sloughs or swales.

    9. The brushy edges and center of patches of scrub timber.

    10. Hill-sides with scattered trees or bushes.

    11. The bottoms of cafions, gullies, and shady ravines, with the side pockets, etc., connected with them.

    12. Brushy basins and the brushy bottoms of creeks and rivers.

    13. The shade of big rocks, etc.

    14. Bare ground under a tree on a hill-side, ridge, or in a valley, lying there just as cattle do.

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  There are many other places in which they spend the day, such as swamps, heavy chaparral, etc. But in all such places it is not worthwhile to hunt at all in this way.

  If little disturbed they will not generally go far from their feeding-ground or watering-place to lie down. I have, however, known deer that scarcely ever saw or heard a man go as far back as three miles and as high up as five thousand feet from their feeding and watering place. It is only in very high and quite dry mountains that they are likely to do this, though flies, heat, and other causes may make them sometimes go far back anywhere.

  Much hunting is, however, almost sure to drive them farther back, to make them take the thickest brush and the highest ground. And in mountainous country it is quite certain to drive them to higher ground, from which they will descend only at night. And there is then little ground too high or too rough for them. They are apt, too, to go farther back about the full of the moon, though I find the moon makes little practical difference about the distance deer go back. It affects more the time of going.

  In winter deer are quite certain to lie in the sun. In summer they are quite as certain to lie in shade. In autumn they often do both, lying in the sun during the cool part of the morning (though they are then more apt to stand in the sun), and changing to the shade when it becomes warm. They seldom lie down where they will be disturbed with noises that make them get up often and look, such as wagons, cattle, etc. Yet they care nothing for the plain noise of people if it be distant.

  Just when and where a deer may be expected to lie down it is, of course, impossible to say. Like many other kinds of game, they are provokingly irregular in their habits, and do not appreciate your kindness in picking out nice lying-places for them, but prefer to make their own selection. If you cannot track, you can only travel on, on, on over such ground as is above described and have patience until something starts.

  The same caution that was needful before must be Still observed. In regard to noise from your feet you must be even more cautious than when looking for deer on foot; since they will hear noise from your feet more readily when lying with head near the ground than when standing.

  Though a deer cannot smell or see you quite so readily when lying down as when on foot, he can still do either quickly enough. A deer lies generally with head up and sometimes with it laid over on one side; but in either case is nearly always listening and watching. Occasionally a deer falls in the daytime into a light doze, and once in a while you may thus get very close to one before he springs. In such case he is very apt to stop after a jump or two. But the times when a deer thus loses himself in the daytime are very rare, and nearly all his sleeping is done at night. And even if he were sound asleep in the daytime, it would not allow of any carelessness in approaching him. His senses are not to be trifled with under any circumstances. So that the question of a deer's sleeping by day is of no practical importance.

  Sometimes a deer will purposely lie still when he hears a person. This kind of lying close will rarely or never trouble you on the kind of ground we are now considering. All your trouble will be the other way.

  Sometimes it is quite easy to see a deer while in bed; as where they are in open timber or open bluffy country with little heavy brush, but with snow on the ground and the country rolling enough to allow you to get well above them so as to look down upon them. At such times every dark looking oval spot, no matter how much it may resemble a stump, requires close inspection. Where they are lying under trees on open ridges, along hill-sides, or in valleys, it is also quite easy to see them; as in much of the ground that deer frequent in California and countries of similar mountain formation, before they are hunted too much. But in the Eastern States a deer will now be rarely or never found lying by day in such a place.

  You must be careful, therefore, how you waste much time in trying to see deer in bed. Where the ground is very rocky, brushy, or covered with windfalls, if there is no snow, or even if there is snow unless the ground is quite rolling, it will not be worth while to try to see them so. In such case your object should generally be to get over the greatest amount of ground with the least noise, depending entirely upon starting one close enough for a shot. And even on ground where deer can be seen you must strain your eyes to the utmost, for it is even then no very easy matter to see one in bed.

  Very rarely does a deer lie twice in the same bed. A fat old buck late in summer or in early fall, before he begins to roam much, will sometimes do it. Any deer may sometimes lie for several days on a piece of a few acres, though roaming a mile or more away from it at night. Fawns and does, as well as barren does and yearlings, will sometimes lie twice in the same bush and even in the very same bed of the day before or beside it. But the rule is very decidedly the other way. Though deer often keep for years in the same orbit of a mile or so in diameter, they change their special whereabouts so often that as a rule it will never be worth while to hunt around old beds; and when you have started a deer from a particular bed you need not, as a rule, expect to find him either there or very nearby it for two or three or four days and often more.

  One of the most natural blunders a beginner will make is to spend the middle of the day hunting around the oak ridges or wherever he sees the most tracks, when in fact most of the deer are half a mile or a mile away. I have already noticed the distinction between night-beds and day-beds, and between ground where deer feed and where they go to lie down. You must bear this ever in mind or you may lose much time in hunting where your game was two or three hours or more ago and a half-mile or more from where it now is.

  Let us therefore leave the ridges, as it is ten o'clock and the majority of the deer are now lying down. Half a mile to the north are some very brushy ridges and windfalls, and just beyond them is a large piece of ground from which the pine has been cut out. This is known to the woodsmen and hunters as a "slash" or "chopping." A pine "slash" is about as rough a piece of ground as is possibly consistent with still-hunting. It is covered in all directions with tree-tops, logs too small or too broken by falling to make good lumber, small brush and trees crushed by the larger ones, stumps and branches of all sizes, and the whole is well covered with briers, saplings, and brush. But there is no other ground that the deer so loves to lie down in during the cool bright days of autumn and the sunny days of winter.

  Here is a large windfall just ahead. It will bear inspection. Mounting one of the huge fallen trunks on the outside, we see nothing but great shafts of timber lying headlong in ruinous confusion, mixed throughout with great upturned roots, crushed tops, and shattered limbs, and throughout all a rank growth of briers and young brush. But wherever we see the bare ground distinctly there are signs of deer. See that smooth oval depression in the ground on the sunny side of those great upturned roots of a pine. A deer lay there yesterday; and if he has not been disturbed it is not at all unlikely that he is here now.

  Hark! Did your ear catch that faint crack of brush about a hundred yards off ? No. Yet dull and untrained, your ear did not notice it. And if it had noticed it, it would doubtless have taken it for a squirrel or a bird.

  We reach the other side of the windfall without seeing anything. Let us, however, take a circuit around the edge and see if anything has gone out. What is that mark on the ground about twenty yards ahead ? Some leaves are upturned. They look moist on one side. The dirt, too, is dark, damp, and soft, and shows plainly the imprint of four feet that have come plunging into it from above. Look back over this log and see if you do not find some more tracks there.

  You find them readily. And several feet farther back toward the main body of the windfall you find more.

  Well, we have "jumped" a deer at last. Let us try another and see if we cannot get at least a view of him as he jumps.

  Do you see those brushy ridges with the ends pointing this way, some two hundred yards away, just visible in the distance ? The backs and points of those are worth examining when deer are so plenty as they now are here. Make a wide circuit to the left so as to reach the backbone of the first ridge a hundred and fifty yards or more from its point. Then go carefully out to the point. If you see nothing, retrace your steps and take the next ridge the same way.

  Too much trouble for an uncertainty, do you think? Then by all means have your own way and go straight to the point. You may learn more in that way. But you will yet see the day when you will take far more trouble tharf that for an uncertainty.

  On you go to the first point, travel down that ridge and across to the next one. Up that and down the next one you think you will go, when suddenly you find some more tracks of long plunging jumps. They look so fresh that you had better follow them back to where they came from.

  They lead you to the very point of the second ridge, and there, in a bunch of thin brush, you find a fresh warm bed about fifteen feet from where the occupant's hoofs tore up the dirt at the first place he struck the ground. Now stoop down in the bed until your head is about eighteen inches from the ground. Do you notice now how you can see over nearly the whole of the low ground over which you passed in coming to the other ridge? The deer might possibly have heard you. But as he could have seen you, we need not seek any other explanation. Now if you had followed my advice, he could not have seen you until you were quite close; you would have had the same advantage of the wind, for it is blowing across the ridges; you might have got a shot at him as he was running away over the level ground; and if he had run around either side of the ridge you would probably have heard his hoofs, and by a quick dash to that side of the ridge you might have got a shot at him. At all events, you would at least have seen him, which would be no small pleasure to one who has never yet seen a wild deer in his native woods.

  And now we are in sight of the old "chopping" or "slash" a clearing with an occasional tall dead, burned or blasted tree standing amid a general solitude of logs and brush.

 

   You must now study four things in the following order of relative importance :
    1. To avoid noise in walking.

    2. To avoid going down the wind.

    3. To keep on as high ground as is consistent with quiet walking and the wind.

    4. To keep the sun on your back.

 

  The first three of these we have already considered, and you know their importance. For hunting open ground the fourth often becomes of great importance; and it is sometimes an advantage worth all the rest together. In hunting ground as open as a "slash," it is sometimes quite important, especially if there are any deer in it still on foot, which is often the case, as deer do not reserve a slash exclusively for siestas. And on all kinds of ground it is an advantage that should always be taken where it can be done without sacrifice of the others.

  Under the head of shooting with the rifle we shall examine the difficulties of shooting toward the sun, especially when it is near the horizon, the time when you will be most apt to get shots at deer. Now to hunt toward the sun is often to have to shoot toward the sun. And the more you can avoid this the better. So much is this the case that if you are hunting down a narrow shallow ravine or gulch from which you expect to jump a deer and will have to take a running shot along or up one side or across the ridge or open ground on the other side, you had better walk on the side toward the sun even though it be the windward side and be the most difficult one upon which to move quietly. This principle holds with more or less force in all cases where your game will be likely to run toward the sun, especially if uphill.

  But there is another reason quite as strong which is of immense advantage in such kinds of open ground as prairie, table-lands, etc., where you often see deer at a long distance. If you have the sun on your own back and full on a deer's coat, he will strike your eye twice as far or twice as quickly as if the case were reversed. When the sun is the other way you may sometimes see at a long distance the sheen as the sun glances from the hair on a deer's back. But as a rule, the practical effect of having the sun beyond the deer is to make the deer stand in shade. You need scarcely be told that this makes him much harder to see, aside from the dazzling effect of the sun upon your eyes. And when you are in the sun and the deer has it be- hind him, it is as much easier for him to see you as it is easier for you to see him when you have the sun on your back and it is shining full upon his jacket. And there is so much sunshine in these old choppings or slashes that you should give this point all the attention possibly consistent with a due regard to the others.

  For an hour you toil through the bristly beard of the old clearing, picking your way through old logging-roads or other open places, when you come to another series of tracks made by plunging hoofs and ten or fifteen feet apart. Examination shows that a doe and two full-grown fawns have just vacated a bit of brush among some old logs in a manner savoring decidedly of expedition. And yet you have seen and heard nothing. But you are doing something of much more ultimate use to you than seeing or even bagging a deer could possibly be. You are learning at last what it means to " jump a deer." It means generally out of shot, often out of hearing, frequently even out of sight

  Well, let us move along. The ground is getting higher and more broken and is nearing a creek bottom. This bottom is covered with "hard-wood" timber, and some of it begins to appear upon the ground we are now on.

  But hark! What is that? A sound like the distant hoof of a horse in slow gallop, coming from the side of the hill toward the creek bottom.

  And now see how naturally you will do just the very thing you should not do — a thing the beginner is almost certain to do at first if left to himself. You sneak cautiously to the edge of the hill and peer keenly over in the direction from which the sound came. You think you see about everything there is to be seen. And you are about right. For that dark, dim spot in the edge of the timber that faded away with a single whisk into the dark depths of the timber was hardly to be seen by even the keenest eyes until just too late to shoot.

  While you were sneaking so cautiously a deer was getting swiftly away, and stopped in the edge of the heavy timber to look back. He then saw your hat rise slowly over the edge of the hill. As he was standing still and you were moving he had every advantage of you. He saw you at once and left before your eye got around to where he was. But you probably would not have seen him even had you turned your glance at once upon him, for a deer in such timber is very hard to see. And even if you had seen him he would undoubtedly have seen you first, and would probably have started before you could take a shot. Now if at the first sound of hoofs you had run at top speed for the edge of the hill you would have re-versed all this. You would have come in sight of him before he stopped running. If you had then stopped instantly, you would have had either a running shot or a good standing shot as soon as he stopped. For, not seeing you if you were motionless, he would have paused a moment or two before going on. In such a case don't stop even to reload your rifle, as you can run to the edge and then load with much more chance of success than by loading first and then going.

  This is a principle that must never be forgotten. The advantage that one of two persons or animals at rest has over the other one moving, is immense. And if a deer in any way gets this advantage you will rarely get him, if very wild, except by a long running shot. With antelope it is still more fatal to success. And even to the tamest deer this advantage must never be given, but should be always retained by the hunter. There are many cases in which you cannot prevent a deer from having it, and such constitute a large part of what is known as the "luck against you."

  It is now getting toward the middle of the afternoon and is time to work toward the oak ridge’s again. In hunting them observe the same rules that you observed this morning. But remember that as night approaches it becomes very hard to distinguish a deer among the tree-trunks, even though other objects still remain quite distinct.

  Night drops at last her dark pall around your hopes. You wend your way homeward with gloomy face and heavy heart.

  Yet why despond? You cannot expect to learn an art in a day or two. You have made progress enough already. You have learned what deer-hunting is not You do not yet realize in a practical form the excessive amount of caution necessary. You still step too hard; let your clothes touch too much brush; your eyes are yet too dull; and you make many mistakes of strategy.

  But there is no ground for discouragement. It took me just eleven days, where deer were plenty, too, but very wild, to get sight of my first deer. Humiliating to confess, but I confess for your benefit. The causes were books, dry leaves, still days, and totally erroneous notions derived from pictures, hunting-stories, old hunters' gabble, etc., without any book or friend to help me.

Chapter VIII
The First Sight Of Game

 

   By the first shimmer of light from the eastern arch you tread again the oak ridges. Disappointment instead of discouraging you has only spurred your spirits to the prancing point. The woods, too, begin to seem more like home than before, and your eyes take in with swifter and more comprehensive glance the various sights of the forest far quicker and farther than ever before and with only a side glance you detect the tip of the squirrel's bushy tail or his little ears as he peers inquiringly at you through some fork of a tree. Almost without looking you see the ruffed grouse spread his banded fan-like tail and walk over the dead leaves in the heavy thicket along the creek. And far faster and more keenly your eye darts down the long forest aisles and among the dark colonnades of tree-trunks, and sees everything very much more plainly than before. All but the thing you wish to see! All around you are tokens enough of its recent presence, but it seems a kind of spiritual slipperiness that eludes all your senses.

  You will now observe all the precautions given you before and wind along and over the ridges, sometimes crossing them directly, sometimes quartering over them, sometimes traveling behind the crest, some- times moving directly upon the top; according to shape of ground, direction of wind, and facilities for quietly moving.

  Suddenly your eye rests upon a dim spot of dark gray on a ridge a hundred and fifty yards off. A strange feeling overwhelms you at once, for there is about it a something — an indescribable something — that never would have caught your eye before, but now does most decidedly catch it. But then it does not look in the least like —

  Ha! It moves, and in a moment slides slowly out of sight over the ridge.

  Why, that must have been a —

  Of course. What other thing of that color would be there at this time of day? Its head and legs were out of sight beyond the crest of the ridge, so that you could distinguish nothing that looked much like an animal.

  And now what will you do about it ? Seeing a deer is by no means getting a shot at it, and getting a shot is often a long way from bagging it. I will leave you to yourself and let you see how naturally you will do the wrong thing.

  With stealthy step you cross the hollow directly in line with the spot where the deer disappeared. By the time you get half way to the top of the ridge a faint thump'k'thump comes from the other side. Remembering your experience of yesterday, you dash to the crest and arrive there just in time to see nothing. You had just a little too far to run; it was up hill also; and the deer needed but a few bounds to disappear in the heavy timber of the flat below.

  And how did you lose him ? Well, he was feeding slowly along, and was just below where you last saw him when you came to the foot of the ridge. You went quietly enough; that is, about as quietly as anyone could go on such ground. But the ridge was both narrow and low, and it would have been nearly impossible on leaves, and would have been hard enough even on snow, to approach close enough to see him without his hearing your steps. Now the wind would have allowed you to swing around the point of the ridge toward which he was feeding, which would have brought you eighty or ninety yards ahead of him and directly on his course. From that point you could either have shot or have lain and watched his movements, and perhaps have had him feed toward you. Or you might have swung around the other way and have come in behind him. But this course would have been unsafe if the deer were moving at any speed, as it would have brought you in too far behind him, and the deer is such a fast walker that you could not have overtaken him without making too much noise. You might also have waited a while in the flat to advantage. For he either might have appeared on the ridge again or would have had more time to get off the other side or farther along it, so that you could have got in sight of him without his hearing you. As it was, you would have had to get within fifteen or twenty yards of him to see him at all; a thing extremely hard to do even on soft snow.

  Four or five more ridges are crossed, and as you are winding along the back of another one there is a sudden flash of white among the dark tree-trunks two hundred yards ahead; another second and it flashes again, but more faintly; another dim flash, and it is gone.

  There is no need of desponding, however. You are doing finely. You are making progress enough in getting sight of them at all. And never shall you see the time when, in spite of all your care, the white flag will not occasionally wave you such a farewell. You were not to blame; for there are times when a deer will see the hunter first and no amount of skill or caution on his part can prevent it. Still, you might as well allow this escape to intensify your caution about walking quietly, as well as your keenness of vision.

  Old Phoebus has his wain hitched up at last; its glowing axle is climbing fast the eastern sky; the tree-tops begin to whisper in the rising breeze. It is time the deer were beginning to move toward their lying-down ground, and we might as well work that way. But let us not go too fast.

  Stop ! There is one just below the crest of yonder ridge; just in the edge of a little clump of brush; about ten feet to the left of that tall basswood.

  You cannot see any deer? Do you not see that dark low thing shaped nearly like a piece of log - right in the edge of the brush ?

  That is no deer ? Well, if you cannot take my word for it, go on and satisfy yourself. Show more of your head and shoulders, of course. Smash a stick or two while twisting your head around for a better view.

  As you raise your head for a better view there is a sudden change. Something like the deer of the artist is suddenly standing beside the bush, looking rather small, it is true, but an unmistakable picture-deer, vastly different from what you saw a second ago and very pretty and sculpturesque. It stands just long enough to allow you to think of your rifle; then there is a graceful undulation of white banner over the ridge; and in a second you are again gazing sadly at vacancy.

  We are now nearing the old pine-chopping or "slash," but before going into it let us inspect that mass of wind-fallen timber on the right. Swing around to the leeward side, mount a high log and go on through the windfall, moving as far as possible upon tree-trunks and logs.

  One third of it is thus passed when there is a sudden crack of brush and over a distant log whirls a curving mass of gray. As you raise your rifle with convulsive jerk, down goes the gray over the log with an upward flirt of a snowy tail. Up it comes again, and curving over the next huge trunk goes plunging out of sight behind it, just as you try to catch a sight with the rifle. Away it goes over log after log, with the white banner flaunting high as the curving gray goes down; in an instant it clears the last log; glimmers for a second on the open ground beyond, and fades in a twinkling over a little rise.

  No occasion for desponding now either. You did just right. No one could have seen that deer standing still or lying down in there. The only chance was to ''jump" him and take a running shot. And such a hurdle-leaper is one of the hardest things in the world to hit. You actually did better to stand and watch it without shooting at all than you would have done had you fired without seeing your rifle-sight or making any calculations for the deer's up-and-down motion.

  And here we are at the slash. Now remember the points about hunting it that you learned the last time.

  For nearly an hour you thread the open places, picking your way with care. But this gets tiresome, and you conclude to go to yonder point and sit down a while. A harmless idea enough; but be just as careful in going to it as you have been at any time yet.

  No, no. Keep out of those briers. Attempt no short-cuts. Walk around to that ridge on the right and take that, for it is high ground and is not brushy.

  You listen, however, to your weary legs and take the short-cut. You finally reach the point, and are about to sit down when your attention is suddenly arrested by three small objects careering away nearly a quarter of a mile off. They look but little larger than rabbits; and their woolly tails bob up and down in much the same manner, as, on a gentle rolling canter, they dissolve in the brush and briers.

  Only a doe and two fawns. They were lying just over the point and heard you enjoying the luxury of that short-cut. By going that way you made an unnecessary cracking of brush which you could have avoided by taking this old logging-road that leads to that other ridge. That ridge connects with the one on which the deer were, and is not brushy enough to prevent quiet walking. Thus you would have made no noise and would have been all the time in a position to see anything that might run, instead of being in the brush and briers where you could see nothing. You may sit down now, but spend the time in pondering this moral: Beware of short-cuts in still-hunting.

  But deer do not always lie upon the ridges or their points, either in a "slash " or anywhere else. There is some old hunter's talk about "bucks lyin" up on the pints a-hardenin' their horns." But my experience has been that even an old buck at the time his horns are hardening — late in the summer or very early in the fall — is just about as fond of a nice little brushy basin as of the points; especially when the sun is hot and there is little cover on the points. And at this time — when the acorns are falling and the deer's horns are fully hardened — I never could observe that either bucks, does, or fawns had any preference for points, though of course they will often lie on them. Now there, some three hundred yards to the right, is a nice little basin well filled with old logs and grown up with brush, which will probably repay inspection.

  You go over to it, and before you get a fair sight of the bottom of it you are startled by a hollow- toned phew long-drawn and penetrating. Instantly there is a crash of brush, the thump of heavy hoofs, a gleam of dark gray among the yielding bushes, a sudden glistening of the sun on sharp-pointed tines, and in a twinkling bursts from the brush into the open ground the stately form of the buck that made those big tracks you saw leading into the "slash." Away he goes, with sleek coat bright and glossy in the morning sun, his shining horns carried well up and his long snowy tail waving up and down. Just as you begin to remember what you came for he wheels around a jutting point and is gone.

  And now, why did you forget the lesson you so lately had about short-cuts ? It was too much trouble to go a little way around, so you came directly down the wind, perhaps without thinking about it at all. It was also too much trouble to get on the ridge instead of entering the basin so low down as you did. Now if you had made a circuit of three hundred yards, and got upon this ridge to the leeward, you might have still had to take a running shot, but you would have been almost certain to get as close again before starting the buck, and would have seen him three times as long after you did start him. Unless you are more careful you will not only get through that brush instead of around it. nothing but running shots, but will get only very long and bad ones even of those.

  Half an hour more brings you in sight of a piece of low ground along a creek. And here a slight movement in some brush some two hundred yards away arrests your eye.

  Drop at once out of its sight and see what it is. In a moment two delicate gray ears appear above the brush, followed by the head and slim, graceful neck of a fawn.

  Pshaw! Only a fawn! Surely no sportsman ever butchers a little baby-deer.

  No; not with the pen. It is always that everlasting "old buck," the biggest, oldest, fattest, and heaviest ever seen. He never weighs under two hundred and fifty pounds, dressed and never flourishes less than seven or eight tines on his horns. Such a number of these fall annually before the unerring quill-shots of our country that I have at times felt inclined, in the interests of natural history, to offer a reward for any really reliable information about the killing of a small doe or a fawn.

  The idea that a fawn is necessarily easy to kill is the offspring of an ignorant head. The spotted fawn generally is, and few sportsmen ever kill one if they can see exactly what it is. But when seven or eight months old a fawn can often slip through the fingers of skill and experience in a style so deeply impressive that the older one grows in experience (with the rifle instead of the pen) the more his respect for a fawn increases. Fawns are wilder to-day than full-grown deer were twenty years ago; they grow still wilder with a little hunting; and they are always wild enough when alone and not running with the mother to be highly worthy of the tyro's bullet.

  It would not do to shoot from here. It is too far entirely for a sure shot by any one, and a tyro would be sure to miss. Therefore the very first thing you must do is not to be in a hurry. Find out what the fawn is doing; examine all the surroundings; see which is the best way to approach it. But above all things, positively no hurry, for in still-hunting Hurry is the parent of Flurry. There is no occasion for haste, for the fawn will probably not leave that brush at this time of day. It probably has not yet lain down and is about to do so. Or it may have been lying down and has risen to change its bed to the shade, or you know not what at any rate, it is not alarmed, and will probably stay there until afternoon if let alone. It is browsing a little, you see. A deer is very apt to nip a few twigs at any time of the day he happens to be on foot. Every time it nips a bud or two it raises its pretty little head above the bushes and takes a good long look. You must get within at least a hundred yards, and even fifty if you can; for it will be no easy matter to tell where its body is, and the head will be too fine a mark for a beginner.

  Slipping backward and going down a little ravine, you reach the low ground without being seen by the fawn, and soon reach the patch of low brush in which you saw it. You take unusual care about every step; you stoop quite low; you felicitate yourself upon your acuteness and caution. Arriving within a hundred yards of where it was, you rise up and take a look; but seeing nothing, you move on twenty yards more and take another look. Nothing in sight yet, and twenty yards more fails to reveal anything.

  Twenty yards more are passed, and your heart begins to labor heavily, for the crisis fast approaches. A long look. Nothing stirs. The silence becomes painfully suspicious. A moment more and you reach the edge of the bushes. The bright sun filters through them; the bluejay jangles his discordant notes in the tree above; the raven wheeling on high grates his dismal throat; but of venison there is neither sight nor sound. Going around the bushes, you find on the side toward the creek those marking so refreshing to the soul of the weary hunter whose internal economy has for half an hour been running under the superheated steam of anticipation — fresh tracks of plunging jumps twelve or fifteen feet apart.

  I have seen men who would blame the deer for all this and start for home, declaring still-hunting a fraud and vowing vengeance on anyone who ever again mentioned the pestiferous business. I have known others who blamed themselves for it entirely, sat down and meditated the causes of their failure, and arose with increased respect and admiration for the deer, double determination to conquer him and his tricks, and redoubled ardor for the chase. For the first class this book is not written. The Adirondack guide who holds a deer by the tail in the water for his patrons to shoot from the boat with a shot-gun, or the owner of the scaffold at some salt-lick, can give such all the information they are likely ever to need or appreciate. But you, for whom this is written, can learn a good lesson here.

  You took care to keep the wind in your face; you went quietly enough and slowly enough; you also looked keenly enough. So far very well.

 

   But you forgot two very important things:
    1st. That the deer was standing in brush of almost the height of its head.

    2nd. That a deer in brush can see out of it far better than you can see into it.

 

  In such a position a deer has every advantage of you. Your only chance to see him is to get upon high ground where you can see down into the brush; or wait until he moves; or else approach the brush in such a way that you can get a good running shot in case he starts. Now there is a knoll on the side toward the creek, and it is only sixty yards from where the deer was. If you had made a circuit and got upon it, you would have seen the fawn's neck and head when he raised them. You would also have seen him if he moved. You might have waited there an hour or more with safety, for at this time of day a deer not disturbed will not move far. He might have come out of the brush and browsed around the edges a while, or even have come toward you. At all events, you would have known just what he was doing; and if he had lain down, by approaching from this side you might have had a fair running shot; for the ground on the other side, you see, is rising and open, whereas this is falling and so brushy that you did not even see him when he ran.

  On your way homeward in the afternoon you suddenly discover two slim gray sticks just under the trunk of a large fallen tree. A few days ago you would hardly have noticed them, but now you at once see a curious color, shape, and slant about them not shared by common sticks.

  But stop do not try to get any closer; that will never do. You are almost too close now. Higher up and farther around, so as to see the other side of the log, is where you want to get. If you go directly toward those logs the owner of the "sticks" will be sure to hear you, or see your legs under the log, before you can possibly see his body. Back out as silently as death, and circling around behind that ridge, go to its top from the back side. That commands a view of the other side of the tree-trunk. If you should start that deer now, you would not get even a running shot; at this time of day he may stand there so long that it will not be advisable to wait for him to move; if he does move, the chances are against his moving into your eye-range, as there are many other big logs close by.

  A detour of some two hundred yards brings you to the top of the ridge. You look down at the fallen tree and see nothing. You look several seconds, and yet see nothing. Concluding that you were mistaken or that he is gone, you come over the crest of the ridge. And in a twinkling
  "Venison vanisheth down the vale

  With bounding hoof and flaunting tail."

  You were too impatient. He had moved only a few steps while you were going around, and stood in a thin bush a few steps to the right. You should have thoroughly scanned every spot within fifty yards of the log, and looked for several minutes, instead of several seconds, before showing even your head over the ridge. So important is patience in general that I shall have to reserve it for a special chapter.

  You wind your way homeward over the oak ridges, and through the darkening timber see a white hand- kerchief or two beckoning you on, and hear once or twice the sound of bounding hoofs. But you reach home without seeing anything upon which you can catch sight with your rifle. You have seen plenty of deer to-day, but all going, going, going, glimmering through the dream of things that ought to be. Yet somehow you feel a supreme contempt for the exploit of your friend who last year sat by a salt-lick and bagged two in one night with a shot-gun. You feel rich in a far higher and nobler experience, and feel that to him who has within the true spirit of the chase there is far more pleasure in seeing over a ridge or among the darkening trunks a flaunting flag wave a mocking farewell to hope, than in contemplating a gross pile of meat bagged with less skill than is required to wring a chicken's neck on a moonlight night.  And you have learned at last the first steps in what is the most important part of hunting very wild deer, and about the last thing about which the tyro is likely to imagine any difficulty; viz., to get sight of a deer at all.