DEER-SICKNESS. 173 



where pork was, comparatively, in abundance, 

 they let their young appetites loose and ate thq 

 flesh of swine in prodigious quantities, whereby 

 they became known as mangers da lard, i. e., 

 pork eaters, and this denoted a stranger or 

 greenhorn, the tenderfoot of the Western prai- 

 rie. 



I was somewhat of a greenhorn myself and 

 suffered thereby by catching the deer-sickness. 

 Like a good many other bad knocks that a be- 

 ginner has to endure, this bit of sickness had 

 an abiding effect on me and was never repeated. 



My experience came about in this wise. I 

 had accompanied a family of Indians o a deer 

 battue, and after the general slaughter was over 

 I was allotted the duty of following up a 

 wounded deer ; by the word deer I mean a wood 

 caribou. 



This particular buck had been shot at close 

 quarters, the ball going clear through its stom- 

 ach. While the shot had the effect of bowling 

 the deer over it had not touched a vital spot, 

 and during the excitement of the other shoot- 

 ing the animal got up and traveled away unob- 

 served. The snow was pretty deep, neverthe- 

 less the further the deer went the better he ap- 

 peared to get along. When this fact became 

 evident to me, who was following his track, lit- 

 erally with my nose to the snow, I put on a 



