[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE] Copyright, 1897, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved. * * * * * PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1897. FIVE CENTS A COPY. VOL. XVIII.--NO. 899. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR. * * * * * [Illustration] A CHRISTMAS BUCK. BY HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Throughout most of the ranch country there are two kinds of deer, the black-tail and the white-tail. The white-tail is the same as the deer of the East; it is a beautiful creature, a marvel of lightness and grace in all its movements, and it loves to dwell in thick timber, so that in the plains country it is almost confined to the heavily wooded river bottoms. The black-tail is somewhat larger, with a different and very peculiar gait, consisting of a succession of stiff-legged bounds, all four feet striking the earth at the same time. Its habits are likewise very different, as it is a bolder animal and much fonder of the open country. Among the Rockies it is found in the deep forests, but it prefers scantily wooded regions, and on the plains it dwells by choice in the rough hills, spending the day in the patches of ash or cedar among the ravines. Fifteen years ago the black-tail was very much more abundant than the white-tail almost everywhere in the West, but owing to the nature of its haunts it is more easily killed out, and now, though both species have decreased in numbers, the white-tail is on the whole the more common. My ranch-house is situated on a heavily wooded bottom, one of the places of which the white-tail are fond to this day. On one occasion I killed one from the ranch veranda, and two or three times I have shot them within half a mile of the house. Nevertheless, they are so cunning and stealthy in their ways, and the cover is so dense, that usually, although one may know of their existence right in one's neighborhood, there is more chance of getting game by going off eight or ten miles into the broken country of the black-tail. One Christmas I was to spend at the ranch, and I made up my mind that I would try to get a good buck for our Christmas dinner; for I had not had much time to hunt that fall, and Christmas was almost upon us before we started to lay in our stock of winter meat. So I arranged with one of the cowboys to make an all-day's hunt through some rugged hills on the other side of the river, where we knew there were black-tail. We were up soon after three o'clock, when it was yet as dark as at midnight. We had a long day's work before us, and so we ate a substantial breakfast, then put on our fur caps, coats, and mittens, and walked out into the cold night. The air was still, but it was biting weather, and we pulled our caps down over our ears as we walked toward the rough low stable where the two hunting ponies had been put overnight. In a few minutes we were jogging along on our journey.