"I'll take a circuit around, and come out about the lower end of your _mot_,"* said I to my companion. "You remain here; lie down flat, and I'll warrant the old doe and her fawns will be found retracing their steps." [*] _Mot_ is the name given small clumps of trees or woods, found scattered over the prairie land of Texas. We had started from camp about sunrise, to hunt, three of us; one, an old hunter, who, after marking out our course, giving us the lay of the land, and various admonitions as to the danger of getting too far from camp, looking out for "Injin signs," &c., "Old Traps," as we called him, took a tour southward, and left us. Myself and companion were each armed with rifles; his a blunt "Yeager," by the way, and mine an Ohio piece, carrying about one hundred and twenty balls to the pound, consequently very light, and not a very sure thing for a distance over one hundred yards. It was in the fall of the year, delightful weather: our wardrobe consisted of Kentucky jean trousers, boots, straw hats, two shirts, and jean hunting shirts--all thin, to be sure, but warm and comfortable enough for a day's hunt. We trudged about until noon, firing but once, and then at an alligator in a _bayou_, whose coat of mail laughed to scorn our puny bullets, and, barely flirting his horny tail in contempt, he slid from his perch back into the greasy and turbid stream. Seating ourselves upon a dead cotton-wood, we made a slight repast upon some cold _pone_, which, moistened with a drop of "Mon'galy," proved, I must needs confess, upon such occasions, viands as palatable as a Tremont dinner to a city gourmand. While thus quietly disposed, all of a sudden we heard a racket in our rear, which, though it startled us at first, soon apprised us that game was at hand. Dropping low, we soon saw, a few yards above us, the large antlers of a buck. He darted down the slight bluffs, followed by a doe and two well-grown fawns. As they gained the water, and but barely stuck their noses into the drink, we both let drive at them: but, in my rising upon my knee to fire at the buck, he got wind of the courtesies I was about to tender him, and absolutely dodged my ball. I was too close to miss him; but, as he "juked"--to use an old-fashioned western word--down his head the moment he saw fire, the bullet merely made the fur fly down his neck, and, with a back bound or double somerset, he scooted quicker than uncorked thunder. Our eyes met--we both grinned. "Well, by King," says my friend Mat, "that's shooting!" "Both missed?" says I. "Better break for camp, straight: if we should meet a greaser or Camanche here, they'd take our scalps, and beat us about the jaws with 'em!" It was thought to bear the complexion of a joke, and we both laughed quite jocosely at it.