290 SPORTING ADVENTURES 



The favourite method of hunting the an tiered beauty in 

 the North-west, is to organize a party, and take tents, cooking 

 utensils, commissary supplies, and teams into the forest, and 

 encamp there for a week or two, changing quarters according 

 as the deer are hunted out of a district by the dogs. It is 

 not often necessary to change camp, however, for the animals 

 expelled from a region one day may return to it the next, if 

 they have not been alarmed in the interval; hence, as long as 

 they are not all killed off, persons may find good sport in any 

 place they are known to frequent, if they get a rest for a short 

 time. 



Five of us bagged forty deer in less than four days in a 

 section of Southern Oregon, although there were several 

 hunters and their packs in the field at the time, and eight of 

 us killed sixty in a week in Western Washington. 



I have sometimes shot two and three in a day in Idaho, 

 Wyoming, Montana, and other fresh fields, although the 

 pursuing pack seldom consisted of more than two or three 

 couples of slow hounds. As a specimen of what deer-hunting 

 in the forest is, I may cite two hunts which came off in the 

 North-west, as they will be sufficient to show the excitement of 

 the sport, the manner in which the deer run, and the jolly 

 life one can lead in the woods, away from all the trammels of 

 society and civilization. 



I was at one time visiting an army post, and, while there, 

 the officers decided to go on a deer-hunt, a proposition with 

 which I felt much pleased, as I had not used riile or shot-gun 

 for six months, and I longed to roam in the woods once more. 

 After spending the night among congenial companions, 

 whose hospitality is proverbial, I retired to the simple couch 

 in use among bachelor officers, and slept soundly until the 

 boom of the cannon aroused me in the morning. A hasty 

 breakfast was soon despatched, and we were ready for the 

 sport which promised so much buoyant, virile pleasure. Our 

 party was composed of five persons, including an orderly, who 

 had charge of half a dozen hounds, and a French half-breed, who 

 acted as guide. In the course of half an hour after leaving camp 

 we were in the midst of a deiise forest of those gigantic firs for 



