532 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[July 14, 1887. 



mm mi <$m\. 



Address all communications to the Forest and Stream Pub. Co. 



A TRIP OF THE GUN CLUB. 



THE Gun Club had determined to have another hunt. 

 Rilev and I had so decided and as Riley and I con- 

 stituted the Gun Club that settled it. Riley and I had 

 been hunting on several different times for short periods 

 <if a day or two only, but we determined to make an effort 

 worthy of the club. The appellation of the Gun Club had 

 been born of sarcasm and nourished on ridievde from 

 some of our particular friends, on a memorable occasion 

 when we went on a wild duck chase for a couple of days, 

 and left two-thirds of the ammunition at home,each having 

 a sublime faith that the other had brought it. So when 

 we returned we had to accept the gibes of our friends and 

 listen to Mac discomse in his most facetious vein on the 

 late "exploit of the Gun Club, so called, gentlemen, be- 

 cause in hunting they prefer a club to a gun." 



The name given in derision was adopted as a badge of 

 honor, as in many other historical cases, though we did 

 harbor secret arid painful recollections of an alleged 

 ranch where we intended a stop, and which we found to 

 be a deserted " dug-out," half full of snow ; of two long 

 days of snow and rain and wind and overflowed fiats, 

 and no ducks ; and of an intervening night of intimate 

 association on the dirty floor of a contracted shanty with 

 a soldier, a Mexican sheepherder, a half-breed Indian 

 horse-breaker, and a ruffianly cowboy whose hirsute 

 presentment and characteristic conversation were equally 

 lurid; and where our nerves were soothed by a spasmodic 

 nocturne by a quartette of c--ts that varied the perform- 

 ance by charging over, and fighting on, our beds and 

 eliciting sulphurous remarks from the "cow puncher." 

 But this time we were to make a business of it for about 

 ten days. 



After careful inquiries from ranchmen, hunters, cow- 

 boys and all sorts and conditions of men endowed with 

 all degrees of knowledge and lack thereof — mostly lack — 

 we concluded to make our hunt on Big Pine Mountain, 

 lying some sixty miles off to the southward, in hopes of 

 deer and elk, and possibly bear and mountain sheep. 

 Right here we may as well drop bruin and the bighorn 

 as they do not enter further into this history. It was 

 mid-October and we had a right to expect good weather 

 and the game at its best. On the morning of the 15th the 

 four-mule team we had procured, with its sheeted wagon, 

 pulled up in front of the door and received its load of 

 forage, a large tent, mess box properly provided with 

 various edibles ; not forgetting the various available 

 canned goods, cooking utensils, canvas wrapped rolls of 

 bedding, and the score of odds and ends of personal equip- 

 ment deemed desirable. O'Donnell drove and Moran, the 

 cook, lending his moral support on the front seat, the 

 wagon rolled away. Riley and I soon followed d cheval, 

 each provided with a California saddle, lariat, repeating 

 rifle and filled ammunition belt. 



My horse was a little black broncho about as big as an 

 exaggerated dog, and I felt somewhat ashamed to impose 

 my weight on him — moderate though it was. However, 

 I thought he would get me down the country and I could 

 get another horse at some ranch to do the really hard 

 work. Later I had more respect for that little equine 

 cub. I failed to get another horse, and he put in about 

 ten days of as hard work as I ever expect to demand of 

 any quadruped, and at the end of a push of fifty miles 

 over a broken country on the last day he seemed in about 

 as good spirits as the day we started/except that he didn't 

 try to run and buck. 



We soon left th? little town out of sight and pursued 

 our southern route by a fair road among broken and pre- 

 cipitous hills at first, and then across a broad and broken 

 valley to Quaking Asp Mountain, up the steep sides of 

 which we scrambled with considerable difficult y and loss 

 of breath. This road was evidently surveyed mostly 

 with a plumb line. An hour of hard work and we were 

 across the bare summit, when a short, gradual descent 

 brought us to water in a little creek bordered with willows, 

 where we halted at about noon, watered the animals, un- 

 saddled the horses, and proceeded to investigate the sub- 

 ject of lunch. After a rest of nearly an hour we pushed 

 on southward over a high plateau, the view, a vast sea of 

 barren hills, broken into all shapes; a dozen or more, 

 miles away the canons of Green River, and nearly a 

 hundred miles beyond the snow-clad slopes of the Uintah 

 Mountains, looming up clear and distinct in this rarified 

 atmosphere. 



About mid-afternoon we ran into a band of antelope 

 and fired a few shots at them on the run, but bullets have 

 a great faculty of going over, under or between, and we 

 failed to knock one over, and having a long march to 

 make, wasted no time pursuing (hem. 



Our destination was Barney's Ranch, in the mouth of a 

 canon locally known as "The Gap," and leaving the team 

 to follow the road, Riley and I pursued our way across 

 country over high and broken barren hills. We stirred 

 up a few rabbits wliich we scorned to notice, had an im- 

 promptu circus with the broncho about crossing a deep 

 washout, which he finally jumped in a wild leap, that 

 seemed to indicate that some iatimate connection existed 

 in his equine logic between the depth of the hole and the 

 height necessary to jump to clear it, and finally reached 

 the ranch, after a forty -mile ride, just before dark, and 

 an hour ahead of the wagon. We were hospitably re- 

 ceived by a half dozen cowboys and hunters, and passed 

 the evening after supper sitting about the big: stone hearth 

 before a blazing fire, listening to the talk and chaff of our 

 entertainers. 



Any one who lays himself open to being joked in that 

 branch of social life is pretty sure to reap his reward. 

 Raphael, a tall, dark Mexican herder, while riding the 

 range one day, had found a half -grown bear cub and 

 roped it (a tenderfoot would say he lassoed it), and taking 

 a turn of the lariat about the pommel, he started his horse 

 off at a lively gait; but the cub squealed and his mother 

 came on deck and made the fun so lively that Raphael 

 had to let go and pay strict attention to getting out of the 

 neighborhood, leaving a $15 raw hide lariat as the price 

 of his amusement, though his friends seemed to derive the 

 bulk of the fun from the episode. 



Then Barney had to take it, too. Barney is an old 

 frontiersman and somewhat given to romancing. He 

 came in one day claiming to have shot two yearling bears, 



and sure enough he had their hides. But there w as a 

 hiatus in the evidence; there was no bullet hole in either, 

 and soon after it was discovered that the two bears had 

 been gnawing at a carcass poisoned for wolves, and Bar- 

 ney had found them dead and did not have the presence 

 of 'mind to shoot a, hole in ea ch to support his story. So, 

 as philosophically as possible, Barney had to endure con- 

 siderable chaff. 



Up and on again the next morning through a deep 

 canon for some miles, and then out on the "Cherokee 

 trail" to the southeast. We stopped for luncheon at a 

 crossing of a small creek, with willow thickets lining its 

 banks, and there found a round-up wagon belonging to a 

 cattle outfit, returning to the ranch after driving through 

 to the railroad with a "bunch of steers." The driver was 

 a typical Western cowboy and hunter, thoroughly con- 

 versant with all the country for scores of miles around. 

 We asked him about the chances for game on Big Pine 

 Mountain, and incidentally about bears; the dangers of 

 bear hunting were touched upon and brought from him 

 about as good a piece of practical advice as I have recently 

 heard: "Now when you tackle a bear," said he, "aim at 

 his ear when you can get him on the side. If you hit 

 him anywhere around that he's your meat, and if you 

 miss him he'll hear the bullet zip and he'll run away. 

 You don't want to wound no bear; you can give 'em a 

 mortal shot and then they'll like as not run three or four 

 hundred yards and chaw you up before they die." 



In this country, where bears are spoken of, it should be 

 borne in mind that, unless otherwise specified, the cinna- 

 mon is usually meant, and he is in savagery second only 

 to his noted first cousin, the grizzly of the Sierras. One 

 frequently hears, when bear hunting is mentioned, and 

 from hunters and frontiersmen of long experience, the 

 sententious remark that betokens the reputation that 

 bruin has: "Well, I ain't lost no bar." 



We reached Scrivner's ranch, at the foot of the eastern 

 slope of Big Pine Mountain and about twenty-five miles 

 from the Gap, at 2 P. M. There was no one at home but 

 the cat; but Western hospitality does not lock its doors, 

 and as we knew the proprietor we raided the milk room, 

 helped ourselves to all we wished to drink and carried 

 away a small kegful with us. This is a typical ranch; 

 the dwelling is in the shape of an L, built of logs in one 

 low-ceiled story and with pole and earthen roof. As the 

 proprietor, unlike most ranchmen, had a wife — and a very 

 pleasant one, too — a sitting room and bedroom, cosily fur- 

 nished, carpeted and papered, formed one branch of the 

 L, while storerooms, kitchen and a room for the ranch 

 hands formed the other. Wagon and tool sheds and 

 stables, with extensive corrals, comprised the other build- 

 ings. The surroundings were not over attractive, as high, 

 bare hills hemmed it in and the sage brush and. grease- 

 wood crowded hard on the front door yard. Some people 

 would think it lonely and isolated to live sixty-five miles 

 from the nearest post office and telegraph station, and 

 one's nearest neighbor eight and ten miles away; but Mr. 

 S. did not regard it in that light; it was cattle range he 

 needed, not sociability, and he was seriously thinking of 

 emigrating to some locality "where it wa'n't settled so 

 blame, thick." 



From the ranch to the place where we intended to 

 camp was a steady pull for some six miles up the moun- 

 tain. We reached the neighborhood of the top late in the 

 afternoon, and, finding a small stream in a scattered grove 

 of quaking aspens on the side of the mountain some dis- 

 tance below the crest, we pulled in and established our 

 camp, pitching one tent and squaring up the wagon to 

 accommodate the cook and teamster. The mules were 

 quickly unharnessed and picketed cut, congratulating 

 each other the while on the completion of their day's 

 work with subdued snuffling brays in a minor key, in- 

 spired largely by faith in oats to come. Just before the 

 camping ground was selected, Riley had left the road and 

 gone off around a neighboring knob in hope of getting a 

 deer or antelope, as we had recently seen two of the lat- 

 ter; and while we were arranging the camp a bunch of 

 deer stood on the slope a half mile away and regarded our 

 intrusion with curiosity. Supper was ready and darkness 

 falling, but Riley did not appear; his experience had been 

 Umited, and he was not used to "rustling" for himself on 

 a strange mountain on a cold night, and I was getting 

 decidedly uneasy. Another half hour passed and it was 

 now night, but still no Riley; and all hands, including 

 two visitors who had come over with us from Barney's, 

 were turned out and set to gathering brush and packing 

 it up the steep sides of a bare knob near by, on the crest 

 of which a big fire was built and we commenced firing 

 our rifles. After a while a distant shot was heard; and, 

 much to our relief, some twenty ininutes later Riley put 

 in an appearance. 



He had gone around the camp and was headed directly 

 away from it and about a mile distant when our signals 

 caught his attention. Well, we soothed ourselves with 

 a ration from the keg (the reader will remember that we 

 had put milk in a keg), and spreading down our blanket s 

 were soon dreaming of the elk and deer to fall on the 

 morrow. Morning came and with it a storm, half of 

 rain and half of snow, but we were not to be dismayed 

 by a little weather, and all started out only to come 

 straggling back again one by one through the afternoon, 

 wet and almost frozen; and not a shot had any one fired. 

 That night the drizzle turned to snow in good earnest , 

 and a foot of it covered the ground the next morning. 

 Again we started out; one or two Ajnug glimpses of deer 

 were had, but no one had a shot all that day. It was so 

 cold that one's fingers were in a half frozen condition, 

 and the snow so deep that our horses could get through 

 the timber only with the greatest difficulty. That night 

 there prevailed in the tent an atmosphere of disgust and 

 wet clothing, and a disposition to make explosive remarks 

 of a deprecatory nature regarding the game, the weather 

 and the luck. 



Hope returned with the dawn and we were soon at it 

 again. After an hour's hard work scrambling in and out 

 of gullies, over fallen trees and through deep snow drifts, 

 my pony was plodding across an open space or top of the 

 mountain, where I discovered a fresh trail — elk and no 

 mistake. There it was, not an hour old, a track as big 

 as a two-year-old steer's, and I at once put after him, 

 hoping to overhaul him while feeding or resting. The 

 trail led into the dense pine woods, and I soon had to 

 abandon my horse. I could doubtless have ridden him 

 through, but he made too much noise, and if a shot offered 

 it was desirable to be afoot. Tying the pony to a tree by 

 a rather loose knot in the stiff and frozen lariat, I resumed 

 the trail, following its windings back and forth through 



dense pine groves, and across wide, wind-swept openings 

 deep with snow, until I finally came out on the southern 

 crest of the mountain. Before me and two miles away 

 rose Diamond Moimtain, well within the State of Colo- 

 rado, its western base crowding hard upon the Utah line. 

 Beneath my feet was visible the trail which, after a few 

 turns and twists of indecision, led straight for the valley. 

 There was no doubt about it; he had crossed to the other 

 mountain. In a disgusted frame of mind I followed. I 

 wanted my horse now but he was two or three miles be- 

 hind, and there was no time to go back. So down I went, 

 sticking to the trail , occasionally baffled when it crossed 

 bare, rocky ground, across the valley and creek, and then 

 up the foot slopes of Diamond, veering off to the east and 

 keeping an ascending spiral; crossing coulees and gullies 

 all filled with snow; through dense brush thickets, and 

 as I got higher and higher through windfalls of fire-killed 

 pines lying over each other in all direction; falling into 

 holes concealed by the snow, but still hopeful and every 

 moment watching the woods and thickets in front. 



But the sun was long past the meridian and I was grad- 

 ually getting discouraged, and finally on the south side of 

 the Diamond, miles from where I had started, I gave up 

 the chase, after a six-hours' steady struggle. It was now 

 after 3 o'clock and I ruefully turned back to seek shelter 

 for the night at Butter worth's ranch, which lay at the 

 head of the valley behind me. The back tramp was no 

 easy one through the snow and windfalls, but I reached 

 the ranch just oef ore dark and was welcomed with all 

 hospitality by Mr. B. and his attractive wife. After a 

 hot supper and a pleasant evening I retired, more than 

 ever convinced of a fact frequently noticed, that any one 

 who goes hunting and really hunts had better not antiu- 

 pate any dolce far niente kind of a picnic. If he does a 

 wreck of expectations is hi store for him. 



Early the next morning along came Riley leading my 

 horse, which had staid all day in the woods where I left 

 him, and finally getting tired of it, had loosened his 

 lariat and made a bee line for camp. All hands there be- 

 came stampeded, thinking some accident had occurred or 

 that the horse had broken away when I was trying to 

 pack some game on him, and so the signal fire and dis- 

 charge of rifles was repeated for my benefit while I was 

 comfortably ensconced in the ranch. 



That day, however, the others had better luck; our 

 visitors got into a runway and killed four deer and Riley 

 had killed two. I congratulated him, but he didn't ap- 

 pear to be very enthusiastic and finally said: "Well, I'd 

 have been a perfect chump if I hadn't killed them; they 

 just hung a ound and watched me get a defective cart- 

 ridge out of my gun and gave me fan shots at both of 

 them, and of course I got them." 



From Butterworth's we started on another day of hard 

 hunting and no finding until late in the afternoon, when 

 I was returning to camp along the mountain crest when 

 I thought I heard a rustling in the neighboring brush, 

 different from that caused by the high wind; and going 

 in I found the fresh tracks of a half dozen deer leading 

 into a bunch of timber about a half mile long and from 

 one to four hundred yards wide. With something toler- 

 ably sure to work on at last I pushed up the mountain 

 across the wind until well free of the timber and then 

 followed it down, and coming in on the leeward side, 

 fastened my horse and worked cautiously into the brush 

 and woods, and not in vain, for after working in about a 

 quarter of a mile a mule deer jumped up in front of me, 

 about 100yds., and after making two or three bounds 

 stopped to look at me. I was wait ng for this, and taking 

 careful aim at the shoulder, I fired. The doe made a few 

 wild bounds, falling and scrambling up again until death 

 overtook it about 50yds. from where it stood when Jut, 

 The bullet had gone through the base of the neck just in 

 front of the shoulders. 



I went on a few paces and there, not more than 30yds. 

 away, stood a young buck, held by curiosity, with one 

 foot in the air ready to fly. I brought up rifle again, and 

 taking deliberate aim, pulled the trigger. The cap failed 

 to explode, and before I could try again, cervus was in 

 full sail through the brush. To say that I was disgusted 

 mildly expresses it, but I went ahead, failing, however, 

 to get another shot, and in a half hour returned to my 

 horse and brought Mm up to my game, which I had bled 

 and drawn before leaving. The doe was soon across the 

 saddle and seemed by a few turns of the lariat; I 

 started for camp, and reaching there just before dark, 

 hung my deer up by the heels with the half dozen others. 



The next day O'Donnell and I started out together, and 

 in less than half a mile from camp crossed some fresh elk 

 tracks, which we followed a short distance, and scared 

 four elk out of a bunch of brush in a hollow before us. 

 They trotted up the opposite slope for a short distance 

 and then turned to look at us. It was a sight to bring 

 joy to any hunter. A big bull with magnificent spread- 

 ing antlers, a cow, and two half grown calves, the latter 

 about the size of a six months old colt, composed the 

 band. There they stood, in plain view, and about five 

 hundred yards away, calmly looking at us. To fire or 

 not was the question. If we could only be sure of the 

 distance over the deceptive glare of the rolling snow a 

 hit at that range would not be difficult, but if we missed 

 they would be frightened and there would be no telling 

 when or where they would stop. We therefore concluded 

 to try and get under cover and quietly work up on them 

 to close quarters. My eyes had been pretty well strained 

 the previous day by the glare on the snow, and the over- 

 powering brilliance of the sun reflected into my face 

 soon made them very uncomfortable, and it was only in 

 the shade of the timber that I could see at all without the 

 greatest difficulty. 



Leaving our horses soon after entering the woods, we 

 followed the trail of the elk on foot, but they had 

 evidenly taken alarm, and it was only after a toilsome 

 chase of between two or three miles that we overtook 

 them feeding in the brush. 



I was nearly snow blind and the scalding water ran 

 from my eyes every time I tried to look ahead, but there 

 w r as no help for it then. O'Donnell espied the game and 

 we approached as closely as we dared, and aiming at the 

 spot of for I could see between the trees, we both fired. 

 O'Donnell was fortunate enough to bring down one of the 

 calves, but my shot went wild, as did the other three elk, 

 and I saw the last of the much coveted antlers. We pur 

 sued their trail for nearly a mile further, but with no 

 result, and fearing if I went on my eyes might fail me 

 entirely, I turned back and sorrowfully gave it up. It was 

 now snowing and our tracks rapidly becoming obliterated, 

 so that I made all haste possible back to my horse and 



