THE CHASE. 3881 
cattle for the want of hay, it was not an uncommon thing in the 
early morning, to see several deer among their stock nipping off 
the buds from the lately fallen trees, and they rarely failed to 
stalk them successfully. The use of oxen was often resorted to 
for the accomplishment of this purpose. The oxen were yoked 
and hitched to a sled, with hay or straw, or other cover placed 
upon it, beneath which the farmers would be concealed, when, if 
the wind should favor they would make their way into the midst 
of the herd of browsing cattle, without alarming the deer ; and 
then if the farmer made a close shot the venison would soon 
hang in his larder. 
In those districts, where the first settlers had to clear off the 
heavy forest to make room for crops, they cut down an abun- 
dance of trees in order to feed their stock, during winter, which 
they cleared away in summer, and for the first few years these 
clearings would be close by the log cabin; and when I was a boy 
those who did this laborious work in the eastern States, were still 
in active and vigorous life. If they seemed to me then to be old 
men, as I estimate age now, they were scarcely past the prime of 
life. They never wearied of relating their early experiences of 
perhaps thirty years before, and surely I never wearied of listen- 
ing to them. Their hunting experiences, when deer, bear, and 
wild turkeys were so abundant as to be almost nuisances, fairly 
transported me to the wild woods and wild scenes, and the ex- 
citing chase which they so graphically described; and I longed 
for the time to come, when I should be old enough to carry a 
rifle, and when I might wend my way to a new country such as 
they described, where I too might revel among game which had 
scarcely ever been alarmed by civilized man. 
It might not be difficult to remember enough of these narra- 
tives to fill a book. One shall suffice, as it illustrates a fact not 
generally recognized. A settler had made a deep excavation for 
a cellar, with a narrow sloping way leading to it. A deep, light 
snow had fallen, which the wind had blown into the excavation 
until it was even with the surrounding surface. The settler’s 
cattle were browsing in sight of his door, when he saw among 
them a deer. He seized his rifle and made a circuit so as to 
approach the game behind a convenient shelter, which was just 
on the opposite side. By the time he reached the covert a slight 
breeze had sprung up and admonished the deer of his approach, 
when it started directly away from the danger which it snuffed, 
and made almost directly for the cabin, in the door of which the 
