128 EARLY DAY STORIES. 



It is therefore all the more a pity that reservations were 

 not provided while the country was yet new, and the wild 

 animals plentiful, where they could be confined by woven 

 wire fences, and cared for and fed in severe winters. And 

 what a lovely resort such a place would be for campers and 

 pleasure seekers in which to spend their summer vacations. 

 What a magnificent game preserve and pleasure resort could 

 have been made of Verdigris, Sherman, Garfield and Royal 

 townships in our own county, with their springs and streams 

 of pure, cold, soft water abounding in trout, its unrivalled 

 scenery and unmatched facilities for a pleasant outing. 



The winter of 1880 was a bad one. Probably none of 

 the old settlers have forgotten how the winter begun with 

 a bad storm about the middle of October, and how that 

 October snow remained upon the ground in some places 

 until the first of the next May ; of course being covered over 

 and over again by subsequent snows. That was a bad win- 

 ter on the deer — they were plentiful here before that, but 

 very scarce thereafter. The hunters, the wolves and the 

 hard winter killed them about all off. 



That fall, 1880, I did some hunting around home, the 

 last I have ever done in Antelope county. The corn was 

 not all husked, in fact the most of it was still in the field 

 when the storm came, and the deer in our Cedar creek neigh- 

 borhood, and probably elsewhere also, got into the habit of 

 coming into the cornfields and getting their share of the 

 corn at night. We had had no venison that fall before the 

 storm, and as we all wanted some, I started out with my 

 rifle about the last of October to try my luck. I soon found 

 a buck's track leading out of a cornfield on the farm of 

 H. W. Swett, now owned by Dr. Nelson of Oakdale. The 

 track led north, going straight toward Oakdale. I followed 

 as fast as I could easily walk where the ground was smooth, 

 but soon the track led down into a ravine filled with big 



