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66 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S and glossy, and his spreading antlers fully grown. In the motions of his eating, every muscle moved and quivered. The sight was so superb that it almost precluded murder, and I sat with my rifle half-raised and watched for several minutes. Suddenly his nostrils caught a breath of hostile odor, and he flung his head high, poised for flight, but not quite sure which way the danger lay. He remembered the alarm downhill and turned to look that way. The white bead of the front sight rested against his curving neck, just back of the head, and the white bead rested in turn on the lower rim of the circle of the high peep-sight. The sight was perfect, and the finger crooked against the trigger almost without conscious volition. A .45-70 bullet in the cervical vertebrae snuffs out all power of motion as though it were the flame of a candle. There was never a struggle, just a sudden collapse, and the beautiful animal lay in limp confusion sprinkling blood upon the verdure where he had just been feeding. The hunter's work was done, and what remained was mere butchery. The rough surgery of the hunting knife must let out the blood in a foaming torrent before the heart ceases beating, and with the same flow release the remnant of life, which still showed dimly in staring eyes. Then most follow the smeary task of dressing the carcass, which had been a deer and was now venison. T he raven flew from his perch and brushed through the trees above. It seemed as though the sound of the shot had summoned all the smaller predatory birds, the magpies and gray jays, and I could hear their harsh cries approaching through the trees as they fluttered closer and closer in short flights. Before my gory task was done they were busy, without fear of me, picking the dainty flecks of suet from the entrails. Two or three other ravens had joined the pioneer and were scolding from the tops of the trees because I was so slow in completing my work and leaving them a clear field. I hung the venison in a tree, protecting the exposed meat with boughs, and washed hands and arms in the waters of the rill. Then I struck out for camp. Under the tall grass, red-leaved plants hugged the ground. Drops of dew had fallen on some of them, making the homeward path seem through a trail of fresh blood. The sun shone down on the valley hot and ungentle. It seemed as though the whirring grasshoppers unduly extended their flights to escape my presence. A startled grouse, breakfasting in a bearberry bush, instead of rising the nearest tree, whirred away clear across to the foot of the mountain where it flapped deep into a tree as though murder was behind it. As I came up into camp the horses scented the blood, snorted, and moved uneasily on their picket-ropes as if trying to shy away from some strange wild creature. She had just awakened and was looking with sleepy eyes out into the sunny world. "Fresh meat!" I cried. "Oh, did you get a deer? I didn't know you were gone until just before I heard you shoot." Her eager interest flamed up in question about the events of the chase, and then in reverie— "One of those pretty, pretty things! How could you do it?" n Editor's Note: "An Early Morning Hunt for Black-tail Deer" originally appeared in the January 1902 issue of Outing magazine. From tree to tree I edged in that direction. I found the fresh tracks, evidently a buck of good size, and I followed carefully on a slant up the hill. I saw something moving ahead of me and was ready to shoot, but then something came fearlessly down toward me, evidently not sensing any danger. It was a doe with her two fawns, working down to a safe shelter in the willow tangle along the river. I did not want to turn them back in the direction in which the buck had gone, so I crossed behind a bush to let them pass. The mother was pushing along with all of the ungracefulness of her kind, neck out, ears back. One fawn wanted to stop for refreshments and was pushing in front of her like a calf at milking time. The other spotted pet was intent on play, bounding about in extravagant semicircles. His erratic course brought him directly upon me, and he stopped suddenly with his legs braced at odd angles, so close that I felt the breath of his startled snort. His ears were opened wide, and his dewy nostrils quivered as he drew in a scent of whose danger he had yet to learn. His soft eyes looked full into mine for a moment, and I could almost have reached out and touched him. Then he remembered his mother, who had passed on out of sight, gave a mew-like expostulating bleat, bounded a couple of yards to one side, and gamboled on in pursuit. T he shadow of my hill had by this time crawled down to the opposite slope in the valley, where the sun was shining full through the treetops. A raven cawed and flapped lazily high overhead on a tour of investigation. His keen eye had marked the murderous weapon I carried, and he circled above the mountain and lighted in a tall, dead spruce to await the outcome of the hunt. The buck on whose track I was following was evidently intent on reaching shelter. He had been in no haste, cropping the herbage as he went along, but the determination with which the tracks forced themselves up the hill meant that he had a mind for the safe protection of the green-timber forest. I must make haste to head him off, and as it would be fatal to hurry directly behind him, I crossed over into the next glade and then pushed steadily up the mountain toward the summit. Just at the very brow was a continuous grassy bluff over which any animal seeking the upper shelter must pass; and on this I threw myself down. I had no breath and could not have aimed my rifle to save my life, so I devoted my whole strength and attention for a few moments to regaining some steadiness of respiration. In the valley way below, three tiny spots of buff, the deer family I had intercepted, were crossing through the grass to a wide bed of willows that marked the filled-in site of an old beaver dam. Down at camp everything was still, and the absence of smoke told that the sleeper was still dormant. The raven cawed impatiently. I became suddenly conscious of a deer in the trees off to my right and a little below me. How long he had been there I do not know, but I am certain that my eye had rested on the spot and its surroundings a moment before and saw nothing. I slipped down off the grass and into the trees, working very cautiously in that direction. A shot downhill is so deceptive that hitting is pure luck, and I sought a place on the same level. A stately buck he was, stopping for a final lunch on the tender shoots of a clump of vetch vines on the edge of the stream. His black nostrils were wet and shone with the high polish of new patent leather. His form was well-rounded, his coat was smooth www.alamy.com