CHAPTER XXVIII 
THE LAST CAMP 
On the sixth of October we pitched our first camp 
in the North Fork. By the night of the fifteenth we 
had covered our season’s assignment. The Black 
' Range was cruised and mapped. The summer, with 
its pleasures, and its hardships, was over, and we 
were free to hike for town. 
The last day of cruising was, by a coincidence, the 
opening day of the game season. Some of us were 
anxious to try our luck on a whitetail buck, so for 
this reason, and also because the trip in to Silver 
promised to be an arduous one, Frazer decided to 
stay over until the seventeenth. Those who would 
might rest, the others could hunt. 
Wallace, Conway, Wetherby, Jackson, and my- 
self spent the holiday looking for deer, but with the 
exception of the ranger we might just as well have 
stayed in camp. Jackson left with his 25.20 carbine 
directly after breakfast and reappeared about nine 
o’clock with a fair sized buck slung over his shoulder. 
He and Brown skinned and dressed the deer and for 
supper we had venison steak, the first I had ever 
tasted. The meat was exceedingly tough, due 
mainly, no doubt, to the fact that it was cooked so 
soon after the death of the animal. As a matter of 
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