THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 115 
A REAL DETECTIVE STORY 
An Interesting Experience Which Illustrates the 
Old Adage That Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. 
[Editor’s Note: For obvious reasons, names and places are left blank 
in this-narrative, which is taken from the office records of the State Game 
Warden. } 
Pendleton, Oregon, March 2, 1917. 
Mr. Carl D. Shoemaker, State Game Warden, Portland, Oregon. 
Dear Sir: 
In compliance with your request of January 12, I herewith submit 
report on my trip to Little Creek. 
I left Pendleton by train on the morning of February 9, and 







arrived at the evening of the same day. After registering at 
the hotel as George Turner, I called on , told him my errand 
and that Mr. had referred me to him for information regarding 
conditions at He told me to see Mr. or Mr. of 
the latter place. 
On the following morning (Saturday), I rode to by the 

horse stage. On this part of the trip and upon my arrival at the 
village I found the customary number of curious people that a stranger 
usually finds in such places. My name was George Turner, and I was 
looking for a homestead. I talked with several people and learned 
quite a little about the lay of the country. Soon found that some 
homestead claims in this vicinity had recently been contested and that 
some of the suspicious natives had me spotted as a U. S. Land 
Inspector. I was very careful about inquiring for and : 
and did not get a talk with them until late in the afternoon, At their 
suggestion I also talked to the justice of the peace. From these three 
men I got a good description of the location of the hunters’ camp and 
the best route for the rest of the trip. 
On the pretense that I wanted to ride to 
freighters that were scheduled to leave Mill the following 
morning, I left at 8:30 p. m. and walked to =. Mill. This 
was only a distance of ten miles, but the roads for the first few miles 
were quite dark and muddy, and though I made good time after 
striking the snow line, I did not reach the mill until about 11:40 p. m. 
It was about fourteen miles further to the camp, and as there was 
danger of losing time by missing the trail, I stopped here for the rest 
of the night. 
On the following morning I hired a saddle horse from the man 
where I stopped. For about eleven miles I followed the Monument 
Road to the head of Creek, and then rode down the creek as the 
hunters’ camp was at the junction of this creek and Little ———— 
Creek. Did considerable tracking before I reached the camp and saw 
that some one had evidently been in pursuit of deer. 
Upon reaching the camp I met the four hunters, gave them my 
card and told them that I was there on business and would like to 
look over their camp. They treated it as a joke and invited me to 
look around. I called for their guns, but could discover no traces of 
blood or hair upon them as is usually the case with the rifles of 
other deer hunters that I find. I then searched very carefully in the 
tent, but found only one deer hair and began to wonder if I had made 
the trip for nothing. However, I soon found some blood and deer 
hair on a rope near the tent and also some bones from a deer’s leg 
that the dogs had gnawed, T then found a bunch of deer hair on the 



— with some 




