One day a young fellow from the East was listening eagerly with me to the yarns of an old buffalo-hunter, and as the hunter finished his story, the young man said: "It must be tremendously exciting sport, John!" "Well, I'll tell you how it is," said John. "It's about as exciting as if you were to go out into the corral and shoot a dozen of those old dairy-cows with a pistol." With a swift horse, trained to the business, and a heavy revolver, a man who can aim truly may often ride into a herd of buffaloes, overtaking them one by one when they are running their hardest, and, riding close beside them, can put his bullets into the hearts of dozens of them in a single day's hunt. That is the reason why the bison is the first of all the wild animals to disappear at the approach of civilized man--it can not possibly escape from a swift horseman. [Illustration: "A COLONY OF BEAVERS."] The most abundant game animals among the mountains are the deer. The white-tailed deer is small and much like the antelope in color, but has a far more sleek and handsome coat. The black-tailed or mule deer is twice as large as its white-tailed cousin, and wears a quaker-colored coat, which in summer is tinged with brown. Sometimes, on horseback, I have met the deer in the mountains without giving them any alarm, and we have stood and gazed at one another at our leisure, just to satisfy curiosity. But they know that a man on foot or carrying a rifle is a dangerous creature, and they never stop long to look at him. Usually, even before the hunter catches sight of them, they have seen him. They do not bound away through the forest with a jump and a crash; but, even if taken by surprise, they vanish away between the yellow trunks of the pines as silently as the shadow of the low swooping vulture slides across the grass. They dart so noiselessly through the dark woods that in the distance they seem more like a troop of flying spirits than a herd of animals.