Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

MARKSMANSHIP IN THE WOODS 185Even when shot through the heart, a deer may runa hundred yards or more; but when it drops it isdead. If you are sure that it was a heart shot,follow up at once, but if you are not, then wait agood while. A wounded deer, when it finds it isnot followed, is likely to lie down ; then it gets stiffand weak from loss of blood. Give it time for thisbefore you go after it. Don't follow directly on itstracks, for it will watch backward as long as it canhold its head up, and will run again, if possible, theinstant it finds itself followed. Go in half-circles,to one side, then in to the trail, out again, and so on,until you have headed it on the leeward side.Buck Fever.—History mercifully does not recordhow many thousand big and bewhiskered armedmen, at their first sight of big game, have stood orsat with mouth wide open, gazing at the thing,oblivious to everything else on earth, including theloaded gun in the hand. If a deer only could winkone eye!Buck ague is different. With it, the victim knowsit is a deer before him, and knows but too well thathe has a gun. But he also has as bad a case of''shakes" as a toper after a long spree. This afflictionmay overcome a rifleman in any kind of hunting,but it is most likely to seize upon the novicewhen he is sitting on a stand and hears the dogsbaying toward him. It is hard on a fellow's nervesto sit there, praying with all his soul that the bearmay not run some other w^ay, and yet half doubtfulof his own ability to head it off if it does comehis way. The chances are that it will by no meansrun over him, but that it will come crashing throughthe brush at some point on one side, toward whichhe will have to run with all his might and main beforefiring. Now if he does let that bear gothrough, after all the hard work of dogs and drivers,his shirt-tail will be amputated that night by hiscomrades and hung from a high pole in the midstof the camp—a flag of distress indeed ! Whowouldn't get buck ague in the face of such alternative?