After eating, we talked it over and, as we were nearly dried out and as the snow had dropped from the trees, we decided to put in the afternoon hunting in a nearby area. Parking the car at the side of the road, we started into the woods. Ten feet from the edge of the woods, in a large chopping, we found fresh deer tracks. We had a council of war and decided to separate and circle the chopping in an effort to see if the deer had left. If they hadn't, one of us would scare them into gun range. As luck would have it, I picked an edge of the chopping which contained a road where there was easy walking, yet where I was partly screened from the open.

I hadn't gone far when I heard a shout from one of my companions. Knowing what this meant, I stopped and watched for the deer. Soon I saw a doe and a buck coming from the chopping, heading for the road where I was standing, and in a direction that would put them in good shooting distance when they crossed. When the doe hit the road, I sent a bullet towards her. Instead of crossing, she turned down the road and away from me. I jacked another cartridge into the barrel, but instead of wasting it on her, I waited for the buck.

Actually, I didn't have to wait, for he was there when I was ready. I fired at him when he reached the spot where the doe had stood when I shot at her. Both deer ran on around a turn of the road out of sight and I had no idea of the results of my shooting. Apparently I had missed both shots. However, in such cases, it is always my rule to investigate, so while waiting for my companions to arrive, I looked the place over. I found a tremendous amount of blood a short distance along the road on the deer's trail and found the buck dead in the middle of the road, fifty yards from the first blood.

I did not touch him as he was no longer a quarry but merely an inert carcass, no longer interesting. My thoughts followed the doe and I considered her probable actions. We are allowed only one deer in any season, and I had mine, yet since there were three of us in the party, I wanted one of the others to get the doe. When they arrived, I could see that as far as they were concerned, the hunt was over. All their attention was centered on the dead buck with no thought of a living doe which had left a track that we knew was fresh? a track that would have been irresistible earlier in the day.

The excitement of deer hunting affects different people in different ways; and, in this case, the sight of a dead deer clouded the thinking of a man who was ordinarily a very efficient hunter. He had visions of the doe's traveling for miles as a result of the scare of losing her companion. Those of you who have read my ideas of deer behavior will understand when I disagree with this thinking. I thought that the doe would wait nearby for the buck to join her'it is almost certain that she was in heat?and when I was unable to convert my companions to my convictions, I left them to care for the buck and started to stalk the doe. I found her within three hundred yards and missed one shot, and do you know what that doe did? She went back in search of the buck. I was all finished hunting as soon as I missed her, for I knew that a reaction had set in, caused by my killing the buck, which would seriously affect my shooting for a time, so I followed her tracks back towards the buck. That doe passed within a hundred yards of the dead buck, near enough so that when I arrived at that point I could see my companions dressing out my buck. What do you think of that? True? Every word.

The excitement of deer hunting affects different people in different ways. It is better for the hunter to wait and keep his position until the deer get closer, this will make it less chance of missing the target.