him the animal. Immediately he began to pant as though at the
finish of a mile race, and his rifle, when he leveled it, covered a
good half acre of ground. This would never do.

"Hold on!" I interrupted sharply.

He lowered his weapon to stare at me wild-eyed.

"What is it?" he gasped.

"Stop a minute!" I commanded. "Now take three deep breaths."

He did so.

"Now shoot," I advised, "and aim at his knees."

The deer was now on his feet and facing us, so the Tenderfoot had the
entire length of the animal to allow for lineal variation. He fired.
The deer dropped. The Tenderfoot thrust his hat over one eye, rested
hand on hip in a manner cocky to behold.

"Simply slaughter!" he proffered with lofty scorn.

We descended. The bullet had broken the deer's back--about six inches
from the tail. The Tenderfoot had overshot by at least three feet.

You will see many deer thus from the trail,--in fact, we kept up our
meat supply from the saddle, as one might say,--but to enjoy the finer
savor of seeing deer, you should start out definitely with that object
in view. Thus you have opportunity for the display of a certain finer
woodcraft. You must know where the objects of your search are likely
to be found, and that depends on the time of year, the time of days
their age, their sex, a hundred little things. When the bucks carry
antlers in the velvet, they frequent the inaccessibilities of the
highest rocky peaks, so their tender horns may not be torn in the
brush, but nevertheless so that the advantage of a lofty viewpoint may
compensate for the loss of cover. Later you will find them in the open
slopes of a lower altitude, fully exposed to the sun, that there the
heat may harden the antlers. Later still, the heads in fine condition
and tough to withstand scratches, they plunge into the dense thickets.
But in the mean time the fertile does have sought a lower country with
patches of small brush interspersed with open passages. There they can
feed with their fawns, completely concealed, but able, by merely
raising the head, to survey the entire landscape for the threatening of
danger. The barren does, on the other hand, you will find through the
timber and brush, for they are careless of all responsibilities either
to offspring or headgear. These are but a few of the considerations
you will take into account, a very few of the many which lend the deer
countries strange thrills of delight over new knowledge