SpurHunter
Well-known member
<div><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3">
I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it </font></span><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then </span></font></font></span></font><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">hog tie it and transport it home. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">They were not having any of it.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up -- 3 of them.
</span></font></font></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I picked out.. ...a likely looking one, </span></font></font></span></font><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I was a little aprehensive about how strong the deer might be, so figured I would aproach teh animal and get a "feel" for how it would react, and how strong it was.</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I took a step towards it...it took a step away. I put a little tension on </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">the rope and then proceded to receive an education.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">looking at you funny
while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">start pulling on that rope. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">That deer EXPLODED.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">down with a rope and with some dignity. </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">A deer...no chance.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The only up side is that they do not have as much stamina as many other </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">animals. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up occasionaly. </span></font></font></span></font><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">It took me a few minutes </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood </span></font></font></span></font><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">flowing out of the </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">venison.
</span></font></font></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">would likely die slow and painfully somewhere. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">mutual.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">have to suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">a squeeze chute. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">back.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Did you know that deer bite? They do!!!!
</span></font></font></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I never in a million years would have </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head --almost </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">ineffective. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">was likely only several seconds. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">now) tricked it.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">While I kept it busy tearing the tendons out of my right arm, I reached up </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">lesson in deer behavior for the day. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">are surprisingly sharp!!! </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I learned a long time ago that, when an animal -- like a horse --strikes at </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">This was not a horse.....this was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">back of the head. Duh!!!</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run , it hit me </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">right in the back of the head and knocked me down. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. </span></font></font></span></font><font size="3"><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">there crying like a little girl and covering your head.
</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope to sort of even the odds.</span></font></span></font><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></span></font>
</font></div><div></div><div></div>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then </span></font></font></span></font><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">hog tie it and transport it home. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">They were not having any of it.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up -- 3 of them.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I was a little aprehensive about how strong the deer might be, so figured I would aproach teh animal and get a "feel" for how it would react, and how strong it was.</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I took a step towards it...it took a step away. I put a little tension on </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">the rope and then proceded to receive an education.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">looking at you funny
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">That deer EXPLODED.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">down with a rope and with some dignity. </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">A deer...no chance.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The only up side is that they do not have as much stamina as many other </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">animals. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up occasionaly. </span></font></font></span></font><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">It took me a few minutes </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood </span></font></font></span></font><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font size="3"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">flowing out of the </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">venison.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">would likely die slow and painfully somewhere. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">mutual.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">have to suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">a squeeze chute. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">back.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Did you know that deer bite? They do!!!!
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head --almost </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">ineffective. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">was likely only several seconds. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">now) tricked it.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">While I kept it busy tearing the tendons out of my right arm, I reached up </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">lesson in deer behavior for the day. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">are surprisingly sharp!!! </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I learned a long time ago that, when an animal -- like a horse --strikes at </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">This was not a horse.....this was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">back of the head. Duh!!!</span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run , it hit me </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">right in the back of the head and knocked me down. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. </span></font></font></span></font><font size="3"><font face="Arial" color="#4b0082"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: indigo; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">there crying like a little girl and covering your head.
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away. </span></font>
<font face="Arial"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope to sort of even the odds.</span></font></span></font><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></span></font>