ietly out upon the open ground.

"`Papa, they are not deer,' said Frank, as we first came in sight of
them. `See! who ever heard of deer with such ears as those? I declare
they are as long as a mule's!'

"`Yes,' added Harry; `and who ever heard of deer with black-tails?'

"I confess I was myself puzzled for a while. The animals before us were
certainly deer, as their long slender legs and great branched antlers
testified; but they were very different from the common kind--and
different, too, from the elk. They were much larger than the red or
fallow-deer, though not unlike them in shape and colour. But that which
was strange, as my boys had at once noticed, was the peculiarity of
their ears and tails. The former were quite as long as the ears of a
mule, and reached more that half-way to the tops of their antlers.
Their tails, again, were short and bushy, of a whitish colour
underneath, but on the top and above as black as the wing of a crow.
There were also some black hairs upon their backs, and a black stripe
along the neck and shoulders, while their noses on each side were of a
pale ashy colour--all of which marks gave them a very different
appearance from the Virginian or English deer.

"I have said that I was at first puzzled; but I soon recollected having
heard of these animals, although they are but little known to
naturalists. They could be no other than the `black-tailed deer' of the
Rocky Mountains--the _cervus macrotis_ described by the naturalist Say.
This was evident, both from their size, the great length of their ears--
but more than all from the colour of their tails, from which last
circumstance their common name has been given them by the hunters and
trappers.

"We did not stop long to examine them. We were too anxious to have a
shot at them; but how were we to get near enough? There were seven of
them in the herd; but they were quite out in the middle of the glade,
and that was more than three hundred yards wide. The nearest of the
seven was beyond the range even of my long rifle. What, then, was best
to be done?

"After thinking about this for a moment, I saw that an open passage led
out of the glade through the trees on the other side. It was a wide
avenue leading into some other glade; and I knew that the deer when
startled would be most likely to make off in that direction. I
determined, therefore, to creep round to the other side, and intercept
them as they attempted to run thr