Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/298

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281
RUNNING DOWN A DEER.

"work treating of Indians, wherein It is stated it was common for them to ma down a deer, averring the method being to follow as close in their wake as possible but taking advantage of the circling of the animal, which saved the man many miles of travel, for all wild game have their home and will not run away from it, those who have hunted wolves on the prairie with hounds can tell you about ten miles is a good average, although it has been known for a wolf to run nearly forty miles away from his lair, about sun-up in the morning there were let loose four young deer, each having a collar around its neck with a private mark put thereon, in fact the commander has scratch- ed on the leather "His Majesty, the King of Spain." The arrangement is a go-as-you-please affair, but owing to the endurance it took there were not many who cared, to undertake it.

It has been before suggested that Ysopete was, like his white tutors, getting to be quite a schemer, and wishing his young townsman to be again honored exercises his brain in the interest of his protege. He has got the young fellow to agree to make the trial, and Ysopete has arranged with an acquaintance of his, whom he knows to be a man for the task, to assist the young resident of the city of the Twenty-four in capturing the fawn, it being agreed that Ysopete is to remunerate the assistant runner, and the young fellow is to have the prize of a large butcher knife.

And now the plan is all arranged, which is about as follows: Ysopete has learned that one of the fawns has only been snared about two days back, and ascertains the locality where captured; he reasons