296 
FOREST AND STREAM 
June, 1920 
OLD BROWNIE OF ANTELOPE CREEK 
CONCERNING A HUNT IN THE CASCADE RANGE OF OREGON WITH TRAILER AND 
RANGER, TWO FAMOUS HEAR DOGS AND HOW THEY PROVED THEIR WORTH 
By JOHN B. GRIFFIN 
I N this story I am going to tell you 
about some of the encounters with 
bear, cougar and other big game I had 
with Trailer, my dog, and the reader can 
be the judge whether he was a bear dog 
or not. I had the same old Templeton 
with me, who helped me kill the club foot 
bear. At this time we were living in the 
Dead Indian country, 20 miles east of 
Ashland, Oregon. We started with six 
head of pack animals, intending to make 
oui main camp at Fish Lake, near the 
foot of old Mt. Pitt. This was a beauti- 
ful little Lake, about 150 yards wide 
and a mile long, clear as a crystal and 
also full of fine trout. The first day we 
camped within a few miles of the lake, 
by the side of one of the most beautiful 
streams I ever saw in the mountains. 
Clear water with banks fringed with fir, 
yew irees, etc., and now and then a little 
prairie with grass high as a horse’s back. 
We made our camp under the spreading 
branches of a large maple tree, and as 
it was quite a while until night, we got 
out our hooks and lines, and in an houf 
we had caught about 20 nice big trout, 
some twelve and fifteen inches in length. 
This we considered a lucky start so we 
concluded to lay over here and hunt a day 
or two before we • went over to the lake. 
The next morning I told Temp I would 
go out east of the camp and hunt out 
towards Lake of the Woods, and he could 
go the other way. This he agreed to and 
so we were off. I left the dogs in camp, 
as I generally did until I sized up the 
country and found out whether there were 
berries, etc., or any bear signs; as I al- 
ways liked to have the dogs fresh when I 
started out after bear. My course took 
me through some level, timbered country, 
for several miles and then I began to 
climb up a gradual slope of open timber 
with brushy places now and then, and I 
could see where deer had been lying, but 
had heard me and gotten up and sneaked 
away. I kept on, however, until away 
along in the afternoon and was getting 
pretty badly whipped out when right 
ahead of me I discovered an open prairie, 
probably six or seven hundred yards 
long and two or three hundred yards 
wide. Upon looking across I saw three 
deer lying down away from the edge of 
the timber, where there were a few small 
trees and an old rotten log. One of them 
was lying on the log; the other two near 
it. They were all bucks, the one on the 
log was the biggest one of the three. I 
sized things up in a few minutes and then 
I backed off in the timber and went away 
around until I got near to them. I 
slipped up to a log that was lying near 
the edge of the timber and looked over 
to see if they were still there. One had 
gotten up here and walked to a tree and 
was rubbing his neck up and down 
against the trunk. I was within forty 
steps now, but I wanted the big one first 
HOSE of our readers who re- 
member Mr. Griffin’s story, 
“On the Trail of the Club Foot 
Bear,” in the January, 1919, num- 
ber of Forest and Stream, will 
welcome this narrative of another 
exciting hunt in Oregon made a 
number of years ago ivhen an 
abundance of big game of many 
varieties made that country a ver- 
itable hunter’s paradise. [Edit- 
ors.] 
so I laid the gun across the log and draw- 
ing a bead on his neck pulled away. It 
was a dead shot and he rolled off on the 
ground; the one that was lying down 
jumped up and started to trot off and the 
other turned and threw his ears forward 
and looked at the big fellow. Just then 
the gun cracked and he ran about thirty 
yards and down he went. I turned my 
attention to the other one now which had 
trotted off a short distance and stopped 
but at the sound of the gun started to go 
again. I caught a bead on it and gave 
it a quartering shot, and over it went. 
This was a forked horn, the other a three 
pointer, and the big one had seven points 
on each horn. I aimed to hit the trail 
we had gone in on and follow it to camp. 
I had gone farther away then I thought 
and when I got to the trail the sun was 
John B. Griffin — a veteran hunter 
getting low, and I was still a long way 
from camp. I almost made up my mind 
to hang up the deer I was carrying and 
leave it until morning but thoughts of 
venison steaks for breakfast induced me 
to stay with it, so I kept hiking along; 
and had gotten within half a mile of 
camp, when suddenly I heard a slight 
noise behind me and a little to one side 
which caused me to turn and look and 
there within 30 feet of me was a big- 
cougar. When he saw that I had discov- 
ered him he crouched down as if to try 
to hide himself from sight and looked 
straight at me. I had the deer slung on 
my back so that my arms were free and 
I jerked the gun to my face quick as a 
flash and, catching a bead, fired and hit 
him squarely between the eyes. He rolled 
over and thrashed around at a great rate. 
I thought I heard the brush crack a little 
farther beyond and realized that there 
might be another one, so I threw the 
deer down and lit out, without even going 
to where he lay. I commenced to blow 
the horn now, which I always carried, 
and it was not long until I heard Temp 
coming with both dogs. He had heard me 
shoot and when he heard the horn he 
knew something was up so he grabbed his 
gun and came as fast as he could. We 
went back and when we got to the place 
where I shot the cougar the dogs dashed 
out into the brush and after running a 
short distance, began barking up a tree. 
We went out there and sure enough just 
as I suspected, they had a large cougar 
up the tree. I told Temp to shoot him 
out which he did; giving him a dead shot. 
As it was almost dark we let them lie 
where they were and went on to camp — 
Temp packing the deer. 
Temp had supper all ready when he left 
and all we had to do was to warm it up 
and if you will believe me, it tasted pretty 
good to a fellow after the tramp I had 
taken. Since breakfast Temp had killed 
one deer; but that was a big one so when 
I told him about what I had done, he was 
happy, but I want to tell you that I didn’t 
sleep the best in the world that night for 
every time I thought of those confounded 
cougars, it made the cold chills run all 
over me. It may be that they would not 
have attacked me, but I will pledge you 
my word that a cougar is a dangerous 
animal and besides, having the deer over 
my back was a great temptation as 
cougars like venison better than any other 
kind of meat; and no doubt kill more 
deer than any other animal that roves the 
woods. They lie in wait and spring on 
them, and can kill the largest buck. 
It has been estimated by the game ward- 
ens that a single cougar will slaughter 
fifty deer in a year, so you can easily 
figure out that every cougar that is killed 
saves a great many deer, and it is al- 
ways a satisfaction to end the career 
of one of these game-killing beasts. 
