BUTCHERY. . 331 



who had done this in one section of this region so long, 

 that the scattered settlers and guides at length sent him 

 word that if he ever came there again they would make 

 an example of him, and he has since prudently stayed 

 away. I had started for Mud Lake, a region seldom 

 visited, as it is difficult of access, and where guides are 

 very unwilling to go. Left so much to itself, it is 

 thronged with game. Martin told me before we started 

 that two men, common marauders, had gone in before 

 me, who would slaughter deer by the wholesale, and he 

 had no doubt that I should be able to trace their route 

 up Bog River by the smell of decaying carcases they had 

 left on the shore. Sportsmen who wish to visit this region 

 should club together, and authorize guides whose routes 

 lie through and in the vicinity of these feeding grounds 

 of deer to prosecute every such interloper. They would 

 gladly do it if others would pay for the trouble and 

 expense of going sixty or a hundred miles to procure a 

 writ. Independent of the mere waste and brutality of 

 the thing, the practice is supremely selfish. Parties who 

 travel through this wilderness have to depend entirely 

 on fish and deer for food, and though the sucking does 

 are worthless, bucks and yearling does are very eatable 

 and the saddle of one is indispensable to the comfort of 



