Chapter X

Running Time

 

   Still Hunting is not a system of any special tricks any more than sparring is. The art of self-defense consists in the rapid, almost automatic, application of a very few principles deeply founded in commonsense. Any one knows that a quick blow is better than a slow one; that a straight blow is better than a curving one; that a slight parry that merely turns aside an opponent's blow is quite as effective as one that knocks it aside, and much more easy to make quickly; that dodging a blow is often better than stopping it; that the left hand can strike as hard and quickly as the right, etc. etc. Yet, strangely enough, a man left to himself falls naturally into the clumsy, awkward methods of the rural boxer. And to get him into the most natural, easy, and common-sense way of striking, parrying, etc., requires an immense amount of instruction and drilling. It is the same with still-hunting. The trick part of it amounts to almost nothing. The principles are all natural, founded in common-sense, and simple. You must first learn what they are, and especially what they are not. Then they must be followed until you follow them unconsciously and become a bundle of good habits.

  We have now gone through all the leading principles involved in still-hunting in the woods before snow falls. And many of these I have repeated even at the risk of being tedious; for I well know their extreme importance, and how easily one forgets them just at the critical moment. The principals involved in tracking and in hunting open ground will be given farther on, and the same effort made to impress them upon the memory. Any more illustration of plain hunting in the woods before snow would now be too tiresome on account of the repetition of the leading principles we have already seen. Moreover, to follow out in de- tail all the varying scenes of the still-hunt and all the special modifications of general principles rendered necessary from time to time by change of ground, wind, light, actions of the deer, etc., would swell this book to a size that would seal its fate at once. We will therefore pass on to what is known among hunters as the " running-time."

  The expressions "rutting-time" and "running-time" are generally used to mean the same thing. But the " running-time" is really only the climax of the "rutting-time."

  The "rutting-time" begins at different times in different sections, depending upon climate and elevation. And even in any one place it is difficult to say just when it begins and when it ends. But at periods varying from September to December, inclusive of those months, the does will be in season. And in the North and West this is about the time of the first heavy frosts.

  For several weeks before the does are ready the bucks begin to get uneasy. Their necks swell to an unusual thickness, as you noticed in the one you shot yesterday. They keep on foot later in the morning and start out earlier in the afternoon. They roam more widely than before; so much so that it becomes a tedious task to track them unless the track be very fresh and it be quite late in the morning. You have doubtless on your last few hunts noticed places where the ground had been pawed and scraped bare in spots two feet or more in diameter, and that on this bare spot were unmistakable tracks of a big hoof. You saw, too, some bushes that had been bent, twisted, and broken by horns, very different in appearance from the marks you saw some time since of frayed bark on sapling brush, etc., and which was done by the buck rubbing the velvet from his horns late in summer. The brush now looks as if worsted in a fight with a pair of horns. And such is the case.

  These signs show the beginning of " running-time." But as yet there is no difference of which you can take advantage.

  Though a doe is still occasionally seen in company with a buck, the majority of them now keep away from him. And he spends a large portion of his time traveling about in search of them. This he generally does on a walk and with head well down. At first he does this only early in the morning and late in the evening. But as the season advances his ardor increases, and for ten or twelve days he follows them, often on a half- walk and half-trot, varied at times with a clumsy gallop very different from the graceful canter with which he vacates the vicinity of danger. And at the height of this time he often spends the greater part of the day in this amusement.

  During the height of the season it is no uncommon thing for a doe to be pursued by three or four and even more bucks, one after the other. They are not together, but a short distance apart. Generally the biggest one is ahead, and the procession tapers off to a two-year-old or so, keeping a respectful distance in the rear. But sometimes they come together, and then there is a clattering of horns, flashing of greenish- blue eyes, and an elevation of hair that is decidedly entertaining to one who can keep his finger from the trigger long enough to "see it out."

  If at the time when a doe is pursued by one or more of these ardents a hunter happens to be upon her course, either before or after she passes, he may be overwhelmed with a perfect avalanche of success before he knows it. A deer running on a gallop is always blind enough to anything ahead of him that does not move. But when thus inflamed with passion the buck is so much so that he often does not care even for a thing that does move a little, and will sometimes charge past or nearly upon the hunter in spite of all bleating, whistling, or any other noise with which the hunter may try to stop him. The havoc wrought in a 'novice's nervous organization by such an onset may well be imagined; and fortunate is he if he has any nerve left by the time the others arrive, which is generally in a very few minutes, or even seconds.

  I have myself never seen more than three bucks after one doe, and that but once; but I know several well-authenticated cases of four and five, and one case of seven being killed behind one doe in less than fifteen minutes, so well attested that I feel obliged to believe it.

  But all such cases as even four or five are now the rare exception, and one might spend the whole running-time without ever getting on the course of a buck following a doe either in company or alone.

  And if you do not thus get on their course you are no better off than if it were not " running-time."

  I have seen some very silly stuff in print about the ease with which any blockhead can kill a deer in " running-time." This always comes from the advocates of driving deer with hounds men who generally know nothing of still-hunting, but think it necessary to defend hounding by condemning still-hunting. If one happens on the right runway and does not get flurried when the procession comes, this is true enough. But unless he happens upon the course of a doe, he can do nothing more than at any other time.

  It is said " all one has to do is to lie along a runway and shoot."

  Now unless deer are extremely plenty the chances of getting on a runway likely to be used that day for such a parade are all against the hunter. And there is absolutely nothing by which the most experienced hunter can decide what runway deer will take at such a time unless he has already seen them in motion.

  The habits of deer in forming and traveling in run- ways or paths are peculiar, and vary with localities in a way difficult to reduce to rule. In nearly all countries deer will form runways when the snow gets deep, but by that time they are generally so poor that only the brute will molest them. On bare ground deer will generally form runways in very hilly, rocky, brushy, or swampy ground. But it is equally certain that on such ground they often do not form them.

  They also, on some kinds of ground, change their runways so often that when you find one you cannot feel certain that it will be traveled again at all. And they often have so many that you cannot decide whether the next travel upon any one will be to-day or next week. Again, a road made by a small band of deer passing only once over a piece of soft ground may have all the appearance of a runway and yet never again be used. The best thing to do with run-ways, except for hounding, is to let them entirely alone. One can do an immense amount of aggravating waiting at even the best of them. And if deer are plenty enough to make it worthwhile to watch a runway at all, you can generally do better by keeping in motion, as you have done before "running-time." Though the "rutting-time" is long, the part of it that will be of much aid to the novice is very short; while the ease, advantages, and pleasures of lying by a run-way and taking in a string of bucks are most absurdly exaggerated. Moreover, the does, yearlings, and fawns are just as wild now as at any other time. And even the old buck, though he may be a crazy fool while actually running, yet that same buck, when he cools down and goes off to feed or lie down, is just about as wary and hard to approach as at any other time of year. When the leaves are dry and stiff, or from any cause the woods cannot be traversed quietly, then runway watching may do.

  Otherwise the best way to utilize "running-time" for both sport and success is to hunt just about as we did before, but with a slight change of ground. In this way we shall lose no other advantages and retain all the advantages of the " running-time." And it certainly has advantages which can neither be ignored nor despised.

  As in your other still-hunting, you must not let the sun tread upon your heels, but should be in the woods early. And you might as well go, as before, directly to the oak ridges, because the does and yearlings and fawns will not neglect eating, as the buck now sometimes does, and they will be found in about the same places as before. Moreover, as a matter of fact, aside from any foolish notions about the superior glory of bagging a big buck, or having a "head" to mount as a "trophy" genuine "vanity of vanities" the does, fawns, and yearlings are apt to be far the best game. A big buck is now far more apt to be an old fool than a fawn ever is to be a young fool, and the adage " No fool to an old fool " never had a truer application than when applied to an ardent buck when running. So that when you kill a fawn of six or eight months old at this time it is a much greater achievement than to kill a buck when after a doe. The bucks, too, at this time are apt to be strong and musky in flavor. Some of them become intolerably so and cannot be eaten. It is a common idea that the removal of the scrotum and penis prevents this. But this is mainly an idea. It may do some good; but the fact is that some bucks, even with thickly swelled necks, are not at all strong flavored, while others are as rank as a muskrat all over, in spite of the instant removal of the genital organs, and this flavor cannot be eliminated in any way so as to make it palatable to any one but a city snob who eats venison for style.

  Still, some of the bucks are good, and the younger they are the more apt are they to be good. And to find them you should keep a keen watch around the heads of big ravines and along their dividing ridges; also along creek-bottoms, flats, and hollows where there is some brush, but not too thick. But other ground must not be neglected, and a good watch should be kept everywhere; for a buck is apt to get on the trail of a doe at any point and overtake her anywhere.

  If the ground be very broken, the ridges high, and the ravines deep, you will be apt to find runways along the bottoms, up the sides, and around the heads of ravines, especially crossing the dividing ridge be- tween the head of one ravine and that of another running towards it from an opposite direction. You will also find them along or crossing the "divide" be- tween ravines running in the same direction. If you find runways numerous or well traveled, you might as well spend the day in lounging around such places, taking a seat from time to time upon some ridge that commands a good view of both ridges and hollows and their heads. And even where deer do not form runways, if you find them plenty it will be worth while to do the same thing at this time of year. But do not allow any affinity that may spring up between you and a comfortable log to become too lasting, unless there are well-traveled runways and deer are quite plenty.

  When moving on a runway look frequently behind you as well as ahead, for a deer is as liable to come from one direction as from another. When you see fresh tracks of the size of a doe's hoof it is well to wait there some time, for a buck may be from five to thirty minutes behind a doe as well as close to her. Should you see the doe and shoot her, or should she escape, remain there fifteen or twenty minutes, keeping a keen watch in the direction from which she came. It by no means follows, though, that a doe has a buck behind her, or that there is more than one buck behind her. Where deer are plenty the chances are the other way. Should you see a buck coming towards you, be in no haste. If you are on the course of the doe, there is no probability of his sheering to either side if you keep still. Let him come directly towards you. If walking, you can generally halt him with a bleat. But if you can shoot well enough, and are cool enough, it is best to halt him with a ball, for there is some little risk of his getting away if you try otherwise to halt him. When you have shot one buck, remove the scrotum and slit him at once in the chest like a hog cutting the throat does not half bleed a deer and then go back a few paces on his course and wait for a successor, etc.

  It is better in the long-run to keep slowly moving for the most of the time. And your eye must be as keen as ever. A deer, even when moving, is often very hard to see. They are not only low along the ground, but are very fast and silent walkers. Even after you see one it can slip out of your sight with wonderful ease, and this, too, where it suspects nothing, but its disappearance is entirely accidental. You must remember this in all cases where you once get your eye upon a moving deer, and either try to get closer to it or try to get ahead of it upon its course, so as to wait for it. A very big buck can slip out of sight, horns and all, in brush so thin and low that you would never dream of his escape.

  As a rule, the following of tracks in " running-time" is not remunerative. The bucks roam for miles, and the does travel farther than at other times. Still, where you find fresh tracks leading to a " slash," toward the middle of the day it will be well to go there if you have snow to make the tracking easy. And yearlings and fawns you may track as at other times.

Chapter XI

Hunting On Snow

  

   The climax of pleasure and generally of skill is reached in tracking up your game so as to get a good shot at it. Many of the best still-hunters will not hunt at all until snow comes, and in the Eastern and Northwestern States the season may be said to commence only "when snow flies," as they say in the woods.

  Tracking upon snow and upon bare ground are generically the same, but specifically so different as to require separate treatment. And tracking upon snow being the easiest, we will consider it first.

  To follow a deer's track upon snow is so easy a matter that almost any one of any tact at all can do it with a trifling bit of practice in judging of the freshness of the marks and the snow thrown out ahead of the footprints. As we go on we will notice the prominent features of a fresh trail.

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   Two very natural mistakes are, however, apt to be made by the novice who hunts upon snow:

    1st. That a fresh trail is to be followed as a matter of course.
    2nd. That he is to follow directly upon it.

 

  The advantage of snow for still-hunting lies not alone in enabling one to locate a deer and come up with him. It lies quite as much in softening the ground and deadening the sound of your steps; in making a background upon which you may the more easily discover your game; in enabling you to speedily ascertain the quantity and quality of the deer about you, the direction they have taken, what they were doing, and how long since they passed, etc. etc. To follow up tracks is often folly. An old buck in " running-time" will often lead you too long a race. A doe may then do the same. If tracks consist of jumps or half-jumps, or half-trot or half-walk and half-jump, it generally shows that the deer are alarmed, especially if there are places where they have stopped and turned around or sideways to look back. It will then be quite useless to follow them except as hereafter directed. If the deer are much hunted by still- hunters, they will be so likely to watch their back track even when lying down that it will be quite vain to keep on the track. Where the ground is very brushy or very level it is rarely advisable to follow a trail unless the deer are very tame or you can use a cow-bell or horse. And where deer are plenty and you are well acquainted with the ground, knowing all the ridges, passes, feeding-places, and lying-down ground, it is often better to let tracks entirely alone and hunt as you have done heretofore to find them on foot at feeding-time, or standing in or around thickets during the day, or lying down. This is the course pursued by many of the best hunters quite as often as tracking. They use the tracks only as a general guide, and depend mainly upon the other advantages of the snow above mentioned.

 

   But whether you follow tracks or not, there are some points ever to be remembered:

    1st. That while snow enables you to see a deer much farther as well as more quickly and distinctly than upon bare ground, it also gives the deer precisely the same advantage over you, an advantage which you cannot in heavy timber avoid by all the white clothes and hats you can invent.
    2nd. That though snow deadens the sharpness or distinctness of sounds, yet dull sounds, like the crushing of dead or rotten sticks beneath the foot, will be conveyed along the ground as well as ever, and perhaps even better if the snow be wet.
    3nd. That it may make an entirely new noise by grinding or packing under your foot when deep and dry, unless you work your foot into it toe first; or when a little stiff or crusty from thaw or rain, it may make a noise worse than any it hides. And both these new noises being conveyed along the ground, and being unmistakable in their character, will frighten a wild deer farther and more effectually than any other kind of noise. And in no respect must any of the caution to be observed in hunting on bare ground be relaxed.

 

  Not only is it a great pleasure to work up a trail, but where deer are scarce it is often essential to success. And as hunting on snow without tracking does not materially differ from what we have already been over, we will pass at once to tracking.

  About all the descriptions of tracking deer that it has ever been my lot to see were nothing but exaggerated rabbit-hunts, such as when a boy I used to take before breakfast on the first " tracking-snow" of the season. They all depict a man sneaking along on the trail until he comes up with the deer, which he knocks over as a matter of course. The deer is bigger than a rabbit; its distance from the hunter is a few yards greater than the distance the rabbit generally is; and a rifle is used instead of a shot-gun. In all else they are par excellence rabbit-hunts. Where deer are very tame, one may sometimes be tracked and bagged almost as easily as a rabbit. But even then it is the rare exception. And where they are wild, the exception is so very rare that it may be thrown entirely out of consideration. In no way can you get so good an idea of what tracking very wild deer is as by seeing what it is not. And in accordance with our plan we will see first what mistakes you will naturally fall into, and how to avoid them.

  A light feathery snow of about two inches in depth which fell last evening now covers the ground. And again we tread the woods by the time it is light enough to distinguish a deer. For the earlier we get upon a track the less the distance we shall have to follow it, and the more likely we shall be to find our game on foot instead of lying down where we may have to depend upon a running shot.

  Here is a track already. But it will not be best to follow it, as it was made last night soon after the snow ceased falling. Compare it with your own track and see how the snow thrown out ahead of the hole lacks the sparkle of that thrown from your track. You see, too, that the edges of the hole made by the deer's foot do not glisten like the edges of the one you have made. All this is because the crystals of snow have lost their keenness of edge by evaporation a process that takes place in the very driest snow and coldest air. Stoop low and examine the deer's tracks closely, and notice a little fallen snow and a few faint particles of fine dust from the trees in them. This dust is always falling even in the very stillest weather. But you need nothing more reliable than the mere appearance of the snow around the edge and in front of the track. With a few days' practice you can tell a trail five minutes old from one five hours old, even in dry snow. But we will leave this trail, for we shall surely find fresher ones.

  Here we come to one that is quite fresh. But the size of the footprints, as well as their distance apart, shows the trail to be that of a large buck. As it is the height of running-time we will let him go.

  Ah! Here is what we want a trail of a doe and two fawns. They are going, too, toward the acorn ridges a good place to catch them.

  With watchful eye you steal cautiously along the trails. These lead to the acorn ridges, and here they begin to separate. The deer evidently have stopped traveling, and are now straggling about here and there. Your common-sense now tells you that they have probably stopped to feed a bit here and may be very close, perhaps just over the next ridge. Therefore you redouble your caution about noise, and look more keenly than ever at every spot that can possibly be a bit of a deer's coat. All of which is very well.

  In a moment or two you reach the top of the first ridge, and a good long look at all the ground in sight shows you no deer. But you find where deer have pawed up the snow for acorns. The trails, too, cross and recross each other here, so that you can follow nothing. And they become mixed, too, with other deer-tracks until you are quite confused. You consider yourself fully equal, however, to this emergency, and resolve to cut the knot by the very simple device of the rabbit- tracker a circle.

  This plan is correct enough in itself. But why do it now? If the deer are still on these ridges you need not follow their tracks at all, but look for them just as you would do if the ridges were bare, as in your previous hunts. Your chances of seeing them in that way are quite good enough. And by the amount and variety of tracks you see there are other deer about, and some are probably feeding on the ridges this very minute. Never mind the tracks now, but slip around to the leeward of the breeze that you see is just beginning to sift down a little fine snow from the tree-tops above. Do not lose the advantage of the wind for the sake of following tracks now. You can follow those tracks in two hours as well as you can now; and if the deer have gone away to lie down or lounge, they will then be little farther away than they now are. Keep to the leeward and remain on these ridges at least an hour more.

  But your anxiety to follow them is too great, and you start on a circle to find their trail again. In five minutes the circle is completed. Yet your stock of information on the subject of those three deer remains unchanged. You find only confusion worse con- founded, a complete network of trails. You should have made your circle four or five times as large as you did make it.

  You see this mistake, and set out upon a much larger circle than before. And while doing this, one of the first things you discover is a series of long jumps down a ridge to the left. Following these back as before advised, to find how you lost that deer, you find that he was feeding just over a ridge only a hundred yards from where you began your first circle, and that by the time that circle was half completed, you with your eyes fixed upon the ground, where they had no business to be, came directly into his sight.

  Two hundred yards more of your second circle brings you to another object of peculiar, often painful, interest to anxious hunters two more sets of long jumps where two yearlings have scattered the snow, leaves, and dirt with their plunging hoofs. In the excitement of your circle business you quite over- looked the little matter of wind, and they probably smelt you. Or they may have been stampeded by the running of the other one, for he must have passed somewhere near here. And the running of a deer will nearly always alarm every deer within hearing of the sound of his hoofs. So generally will they take alarm from any other animal.

  By the time your circle is nearly completed you find that the doe and two fawns have left the ridges and gone across a flat creek-bottom. This does not, however, prove your circle enterprise a profitable one, for you could easily have discovered this in time without throwing away the prospects you had for a shot at the other three deer.

  You follow the trail of the doe and fawns across the creek, where it turns and goes up the creek-bottom some twenty or thirty yards from the creek. Thus far they have been walking along nearly together, and at an ordinary pace. But now the trails are separating and the steps get shorter and more ir- regular. Here one has wandered off a few rods to one side ; here another has stopped at a bush and nibbled a few twigs ; there the old one has been traveling rather aimlessly around and through a patch of black-haws. All these signs tell you to be very careful, for they may be within sight at this instant, though they may also have gone on half a mile or more. On the way to lie down deer will often stop an hour or two in such a place to browse and stand around a while. That is what these have been doing, and as it is yet early they may yet be here.

  Priding yourself upon your caution and acuteness you move quietly along, with rifle ready and eyes piercing every bush far into the distance, for some three hundred yards. There on the other side of a thin patch of wild-plum bushes you find that refreshing sight with which your eyes are already so familiar, the long-jumps. There are three sets of them, and all beautifully long. At first you are inclined to ejaculate; but your chagrin yields at once to wonder, for a glance into the brush shows you that they were all on foot in it when they started. Yet the brush is so thin that you can see plainly all through it, and you recognize the plum-patch as one at which you looked very keenly some two hundred yards back and thought then that you could see distinctly through it.

  And you naturally wonder how they got started. Well, when your head first arrived in sight of that brush they were standing in there, two of them browsing, the other looking back in the direction from which they came. You have already been told of what an advantage the animal that is at rest has over the one that is moving. You have also learned that an animal in brush can see out much better than one outside can see in. And I must again remind you that a deer standing still in brush is, even with the aid of snow as a background, one of the hardest things in the world to detect with the eye.

  But you cannot comprehend how they could have run without your seeing them at all. If they saw enough, of your head to take the alarm, how could their whole bodies escape your eyes, especially when that bit of brush was the first thing on which your eyes rested when you came in sight of it at all ? It is rather a puzzle, it is true; but its only solution is this: a deer's eyes, when watching his back track, are as keen to detect a motion in the woods as are those of the wildest antelope on the plain. Some people who had never hunted very wild deer would doubt this, but as you have an hour or two now of time that is not very precious I will show you how extremely true it is. It will reduce your opinion of yourself considerably below par, but it will reward you well in future, and also give you a good idea of the general futility of following upon the track of a deer that you have started.

  Let us follow, then, the trail of these three and see if we can again get sight of them. Do not try to get a shot; be content with even a sight. Go right ahead on the trail and look into the woods as far and as keenly as you can. Nearly half a mile you follow them, the long jumps still continuing. Here they have skipped a high fallen log, and in three places the snow is switched from it by their descending tails. Here one has smashed through a bush, scattering snow and dead branches around, and there another has struck some boggy ground and splashed mud and water around in fine style. But suddenly the jumps slacken to a trot ; in a few yards that stops, and you find where they have stopped and huddled up, one standing sideways, the other two turning all the way around. And then the long jumps begin again, still longer now than before.

  And yet the ground is all quite open. They stopped behind no brush, no logs, no rising ground, .nothing to hide them from your sight. Yet it is evident that they stopped here and looked back, and that they then started again in sudden alarm. Yet the wind and the distance are such that they could neither have heard nor smelt you. They must therefore have seen you; yet you saw nothing of them, although they were under full headway. Do you think this impossible ? Does it seem that the second run must have been only a continuance of the first run? Then by all means follow them to the next place where they stop to look back and see what they do there.

  On, on, on, on, nearly half a mile farther go the tracks, as if the deer were in a hurdle-race over the biggest logs to be found. Then they suddenly stop and huddle up; and then as suddenly go on again in jumps as long as ever.

  And so you might keep on the livelong day, seeing perhaps two or three times a faint glimpse of dark evanescence among the distant trunks, but seeing nothing long enough to raise the rifle upon, and four fifths of the time seeing not a trace of game at all. And yet all the time it is evident that the deer have each time seen you. And five times out of six such will be your experience with very wild deer, whether they be old bucks or young fawns. The sixth time you may perhaps get a long standing shot or a closer running one in the course of half a day's chase, but neither will be good enough to give you much prospect of hitting.

  The principal difference between these and deer that are not very wild is that you will generally get sight of the latter, but rarely until they are running away. And when you do see them standing it will rarely he long enough, nor will they generally be close enough, for anything like a certain shot. This applies to the latter deer only when they have once been started. Deer that are not very wild seldom or never have the trick of watching back upon their track before being started.

  You passed a fresh track of a big buck a few moments ago that led toward the slash. He has gone there to rest a bit after his morning travels. You had better try him, for " anybody can kill a buck in running-time." At least that is what they say.

  You start off upon his track with much more care than you did upon the trail of the others. But this is only time wasted. The woods here are quite open for several hundred yards, and as far as you can see there are no windfalls, brush-patches, or brushy ridges.

  There is no probability that he has stopped anywhere along such ground as this when, if you remember the woods as you should do, the old slash is less than half a mile in the direction the track is leading.

  Reaching the slash you find the trail winds over a ridge and down into a little basin. You look very long and carefully into the basin, thoroughly inspecting all the brush it contains. Seeing nothing, you descend and follow the trail across it and up the end of a ridge that juts into it. On the point of this ridge, in a clump of low briers, you find a large, fresh, warm bed, with the well-known long jumps leading away from it.

  Now stoop low in this bed and you can still see every step of the way you came for a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards back. While your eyes were intently fixed upon the track he saw you and departed.

  Now what was the use in keeping your eyes so much upon the track? Can you not tell well enough about where it is going to be able to go at least fifty yards without looking at it? And if you must look at it, can you not do so with an occasional side glance of the eye that does not take your attention from anything beyond? And where the necessity of treading so constantly in the tracks? And what was the use in going into that basin at all? Could you not just as well have wound around it out of sight behind this ridge to the right? And by so doing could you not have found out whether the buck passed out of the basin, and just where he left it, quite as surely as you could have done by having both eyes and feet half the time in his tracks? Had you done this he would not have seen you so soon; and when he did see you, you would have had a good running shot at him.

  Turn off now to one side and keep down along the edge of the " slash” and see if any more deer have come from the timber to lie down in here.

  A few moments' walk brings you to the trail of two yearlings. These you follow for quarter of a mile into the "slash," using all your care, skill, eyesight, and caution about noise, moving not over half a mile an hour, working each foot toe first through the snow so as to feel any possible stick or brush that may crack beneath it, easing off any twig that could possibly scratch on your clothes, and looking, looking, looking oh so keenly! You reap at last a common reward of honest, patient toil a sight of two sets of long plunging jumps leading away from two fresh warm beds. The sun smiles sweetly as ever down through the bracing air ; the lonely pines are as dignified and solemn as usual; the luxuriant briers embrace your trowsers as fraternally as ever ; and the old logs and stumps loom up around you more smiling and bigger than before. But sight or sound of venison there is none, and you are the sole being in a dreary microcosm of snow, brush, briers, stumps, logs, and dead trees.