Twenty deer must have seen him where he saw one. That night this same
man came straggling wearily into our midst and asked the way to his
camp. He explained that he had put a piece of paper on a tree to guide
him, but that he could not find the tree. We asked him what luck. He
said that there were only does in the country. Perhaps he was right,
because that is all they shot. We found two down in the gullies after
they had gone. For a week they hunted all over the place with horses,
guns, and dogs, and got no legitimate game. During this same time,
beneath their very noses, we got two fine bucks. So much for the men of
iron.
The first buck I ever landed with the bow thrilled me to such an extent
that every detail is memorable. After a long, hard morning hunt, I was
returning to camp alone. It was nearly noon; the sun beat down on the
pungent dust of the trail, and all nature seemed sleepy. The air, heavy
with the fragrance of the pines, hardly stirred.
I was walking wearily along thinking of food, when suddenly my outer
visual fields picked up the image of a deer. I stopped. There, eighty
yards away, stood a three-year-old buck, grazing under an oak.
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