ommon' deer. Gass--who by now has been elected
sergeant to take poor Floyd's place--in his _Journal_ says they killed
thirteen common deer, two blacktailed, three buffalo, and a 'goat' that
day--not a half bad day, that, eh? Don't you wish we'd been along?

"But Gass in his book also says something I want you to remember, for it
may help explain the 'fallow' deer which Clark mentions, and which I
don't understand at all. Gass says: 'There is another species of deer in
this country, with small horns and long tails. The tail of one we killed
was 18 inches long.' Now that precisely coincides with the 'fantail'
deer which some old-time hunters of my acquaintance say they have
killed in the Black Hills country, though scientists say there never was
any fantail deer. Our men were now right east of the Black Hills. For
myself, I am convinced there was a fantail deer, and that it has far
more rights as a species than the dozen or more 'species' of bears which
our Washington scientists keep on finding.

"But even this is not all I am trying to get into your minds about this
country where our lost hunter Shannon was wandering alone. They were
getting all sorts of elk, catfish, and beaver, from the last of August
on, but better here--on September 5th they saw both 'goats' and wild
turkeys on the same day. Did you know that wild turkeys ranged so far
north? Well, they at that time overlapped the range of the buffalo, the
elk, the blacktailed deer, the badger, the antelope, the prairie dog,
and the magpie.

"And in this hunting paradise, they killed on one day, September 8th,
two buffalo, one large elk, one small elk, four deer, three turkeys, and
a squirrel. All gone now, even almost all the prairie dogs and maybe the
magpies; and we haven't seen any young wild geese on our trip, either.
But now, following out the record of these men, we can see what a
wonderful hunting country they had been in, almost every day from St.
Louis, especially here, where the lower country began to blend with the
high Plains and their game animals. Great days, boys--great days! Alas!
that they are gone for you and me forever."

"You're getting off the track, Uncle Dick," said John, critically, just
now, as the former concluded his long talk on the game animals.

"Why, what do you mean?"

"While Shannon was lost, and while they were all having such good luck
hunting, they at last had found their Sioux and got them in for a
council. That was under a