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“‘This yere’s a black-tail, which is different; says Lyin’ Jim; ‘it’s exactly them front laigs you talks of so lightly I’m ‘fraid of.

“‘The buck he stands thar sorter dazed an’ battin’ of his eyes. I ain’t no time to go back for my Sharp’s, an’ my six-shooter is left in camp. Right near is a high rock with a steep face about fifteen feet straight up an’ down. I scrambles on to this an’ breathes ag’in, ’cause I knows no deer is ever compiled yet who makes the trip. The buck’s come to complete by now, an’ when he observes me on the rock, his rage is as boundless as the glory of Texas.’

“‘Gents, we-alls takes another cow-swaller, right yere,’ shouts Texas Thompson. ‘It’s a rool with me to drink every time I hears the sacred name of Texas.’

“When we-alls conceals our forty drops in the usual place, Lyin’ Jim proceeds:

“‘When this buck notes me, he’s that frenzied he backs off an’ jumps ag’in the face of the rock stiff-laiged, an’ strikes it with them hoofs of him. Which he does this noomerous times, an’ every hoof cuts like a cold-chisel. It makes the sparks go spittin’ an’ flyin’ like it’s a blacksmith-shop.

“‘I’m takin’ it ca’m enough, only I’m wonderin’ how I’m goin’ to fetch loose, when I notices them sparks from his hoofs sets the pine twigs an’ needles a-blazin’ down by the base of the rock.

“‘That’s what comes to my relief. In two minutes this yere spreads to a general conflagration, and the last I sees of my deer he’s flyin’ over the Divide into the next canyon with his tail a-blazin’ an’ him utterin’ shrieks. I has only time to make camp, saddle up, an’ line out of thar, to keep from bein’ burned before my time.

“‘This yere fire rages for two months, an’ burns up a billion dollars worth of mountains, I’m a coyote if some folks don’t talk of lawin’ me about it.’

“‘That’s a yarn which has the year-marks of trooth, but all the same it’s deer as saves my life once,’ says Doc Peets, sorter trailin’ in innocent-like when this Lyin’ Jim gets through; ‘leastwise their meat saves it. I’m out huntin’ same as you is, this time to which I alloods.

“‘I’m camped on upper Red River; up where the river is only about twelve feet wide. It ain’t deep none, only a few inches, but it’s dug its banks down about four feet. The river runs along the center of a mile-wide valley, which they ain’t no trees in it, but all cl’ar an’ open. It’s snowin’ powerful hard one, evenin’ about 3 o’clock when I comes back along the ridge towards my camp onder the pines. While I’m ridin’ along I crosses the trail of nineteen deer. I takes it too quick, ’cause I needs deer in my business, an’ I knows these is close or their tracks would be covered, the way it snows.

“‘I runs the trail out into the open, headin’ for the other ridge. The snow is plenty deep out from onder the pines, but I keeps on. Final, jest in the mouth of a canyon, over the other side where the pines begins ag’in, up jumps a black. tail from behind a yaller-pine log, and I drops him.

“‘My pony’s plumb broke down by now, so I makes up my mind to camp. It’s a ‘way good site. Thar’s water comin’ down the canyon; thar’s a big, flat floor of rocks–big as the dance-hall floor–an’ all protected by a high rock-faced bluff, so no snow don’t get thar none; an’ out in front, some twelve feet, is a big pitch-pine log. Which I couldn’t a-fixed things better if I works a year.

“‘I sets fire to the log, cuts up my deer, an’ sorter camps over between the log an’ bluff, an’ takes things as ba’my as summer. I has my saddle-blanket an’ a slicker, an’ that’s all I needs.