PIONEER HUNTERS OF THE KANKAKEE 

 flats and ridges and they would have to be 

 chased hard before they would run the low 

 swamps. Big Beech Ridge was to be my stand 

 and Garrison on the west end of Peach Island. 

 Smith took the dog to the flats and had no more 

 than got on them when the dog took up a trail. 

 Just after sunrise 1 reached the east end of the 

 ridge only to see two hunters coming up from 

 the other side. We were strangers, I had never 

 met either of them before, but 1 never stand on 

 ceremony with a sportsman. An acquaintance 

 was soon struck up between us. They were 

 from South Bend, Indiana, and had a camp on 

 Goose Island. One of the hunters was a grey- 

 haired man, probably sixty-five years of age, 

 and claimed to be an old deer hunter who had 

 hunted and killed deer with the Indians when 

 the Kankakee Swamps were yet the hunting 

 grounds of the Pottowattomies. His partner 

 was much younger. The old hunter was one of 

 those fellows that thought he knew it all and 

 what he did not know about deer hunting was 



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