Post 00264
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For years I wondered how big game managed to live through the hard winters. How did they obtain food while the snows lay deep? Two winters of snowshoeing through the Rocky Mountains as Snow Observer often brought me in contact with wild game. These wanderings, together with numerous winter camping-excursions through the woods in other scenes, gave me many a glimpse of the winter manners and customs of big wild folk.
One autumn a heavy snow-storm caught me in the mountains of Colorado without snowshoes. In getting out of this I found it easier to wade down a shallow unfrozen stream than to wallow through deep snow. Presently I came upon a herd of deer who were also avoiding the deep snow by using a water-way. They were traveling along in the river and occasionally paused to feed off the banks. Out all floundered into the snow to let me pass. They reëntered the water before I was out of sight.
A few days later I returned on snowshoes to see how they were faring. Deep snow had not seriously concerned them. They were in a snow-less place near the river. During the storm an accumulation of sludgy, floating snow had formed a temporary dam in the stream, which raised the water and flooded a near-by flat. Presently the dam went out, and the water ran off; but the water carried with it some of the snow, and it had dissolved much of the remainder. In this cleared place the deer were feeding and loitering.