268 THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 
A certain Oregon game warden took a trip into the mountains to 
look things over and rode up to the cabin of a homesteader. After pass- 
ing the time of the day, asked if game was plentiful in those parts. 
The old settler told him that he simply lived off grouse and deer. The 
warden asked the homesteader if he knew he was talking to a game 
warden, and asked who he was, to which the old man replied: “I am 
the biggest liar in Oregon.” 
MY FIRST BIG HUNT IN OREGON 
By Deputy Warpen J. W. WALDEN. 
I came to Oregon in 1886, and if I remember rightly it was in 
October of the same year that I took a trip over in the Wallowa county 
with a friend. We went back on what was then called Howard Mea- 
dow, reaching there on a Thursday, about 1 p. m. We camped in a log 
cabin which had been built by some former hunter or trapper. Every- 
thing was up to date; in one corner was a bed made of slender poles 
with a mattress of fragrant fir boughs; at the other end was a fire- 
place, while in the center of the room stood a roughly hewn table made 
of a tamarac tree, and the regular hunter style of chair, namely—a 
couple of cracker boxes. 
After we had unpacked, we proceeded to get something to eat, after 
which we washed our dishes in hunter’s style by turning them bottom- 
side up on the table. Then we got our trusty guns and knives and 
started out to rustle some game, and about two miles north we found 
deer, bear and elk track in plenty. This was the first time I had ever 
been in a bear country, and I felt somewhat nervous, but I soon realized 
that I was not the only one who felt afraid, for my friend kept insisting 
that we were looking for deer and not for bear, and was for turning 
back to camp. We ran into a huckleberry patch that had been wallowed 
down by the bears, and not knowing the country I did not want to 
venture out alone, so followed my partner back to camp in safety. We 
held a consultation behind closed doors, and decided to go in another 
direction and see if we could locate some deer. It was about the middle 
of the afternoon now, but we struck out east and climbed a hill that 
seemed to me as though it were two miles high. We came out on a 
bald ridge which we followed back about a mile. About this time my 
friend came to the conclusion that we had gone far enough as we had a 
heavy strip of timber to pass through on the way back to camp, and he 
said he preferred to pass through it in daylight. So we sat down on a 
log to watch for a deer and to rest a little. 
We had been there but a few minutes when we heard a noise that 
seemed to come from a canyon to the south of us. My friend heard the 
noise about the same time I did and started to talk about camp, and 
right there I decided that he was no hunter and should have been at 
_home, but I did not voice my thoughts, thinking that I might be able to 
get him to stay there till I could investigate the noise. I went a little 
way down the side of the canyon, and there behind a fallen log, about 
three hundred yards from me, was a big black bear scratching the 
bark off the log. I learned afterwards that he was looking for ants. 
After loosening the bark from one end of the log to the other he pulled 
it off, and such a noise as it did make. The next thing I heard was 
my friend yelling at me and declaring that he was going to camp. I 
hurried to the top of the hill again, but he was tearing up the turf on 
the way back to camp just as fast as he could go, sol followed. It was 
