A. M. we had seen several bunches of deer but they were running 
and too far away to shoot. We were hunting in an open flat woods. 
The deer could, I knew, hear our every step and see us when we were 
three or four hundred yards away. I very soon came to the conclu¬ 
sion that Skinner was not the hunter he thought he was. About this 
time we came to a deep “bayou”. At this point the swamp was 
broken, having some small branches and creeks running into the bayou. 
I remarked to Skinner that this looked better because we could slip 
on a deer where the land was as it was there. “Well, he said, “they 
have all laid down by this time and we had just as well go home.” 
1 told him no, I wanted to hunt all day, or kill a deer. I wanted to go 
up a ravine alone and see if I could slip up on one. He said, “Yes, 
you had better stay with me or you might get lost.” I told him if I 
did I had all day to find my way back. “Go ahead,” he said, “if 
you have to lay in this swamp two or three days you won’t think 
it’s fun.” I was really anxious to get away from Skinner. His 
method of hunting did not conform with my idea at all. 
I walked up the ravine about one hundred yards from where I 
left Skinner and stopped to listen. Suddenly I heard a scarcely aud¬ 
ible rustling of the leaves just above me on the bank. Almost afraid 
to stir for fear of frightening it away if it should be a deer, I cau¬ 
tiously looked up and there, sure enough, was a five-point buck 
slowly strolling along with his nose on the ground, trailing, I sup¬ 
pose, other deer. I cocked both hammers of the gun, raised it to my 
shoulder and taking good aim just behind his left shoulder, pulled 
the triggers. . Both barrels fired, knocking me backward two or three 
steps. The deer did not fall, but ran as if crippled. He ran in sight 
of Skinner and I heard his gun fire so I broke into a run toward where 
I had heard the report of his gun. I soon ran upon him where he 
was confusedly trying to trail the deer by the blood. He looked up 
quickly. “You did shoot one, didn’t you?” “Yes,” I said, “and 
wasn’t over fifteen feet from him.” “Can’t see why he didn’t stop,” 
he replied. “You certainly crippled him; I could see his left front 
leg was broken.” 
We tried to trail the deer but the ground was hard and he was 
not bleeding much. Finally we concluded the best thing to do would 
be to get the dogs to trail him. So Skinner set off for the house to 
get the dogs and I promised to stay until his return. In the mean¬ 
time, I tried to pick up the trail of the deer but could not. But it 
wasn’t long until Skinner returned with a bunch of all kinds of dogs, 
mostly curs, and James Climan came with him astride a mule. The 
dogs very soon hit the trail and we could hear them when they caught 
the deer which wasn’t so very far away. James Climan struck out 
after them on his mule, Skinner and I afoot. Climan reached the 
deer first, jumped off his mule and grabbed the struggling deer by 
the horns. When we arrived the old buck was standing on his hind 
feet, foaming and striking with his right foreleg. The dogs had a firm 
hold on his hams and Climan had a firm hold on his horns, but in 
spite of this and the fact that his left foreleg was broken the buck 
was putting up a braVe and hard fight. When Climan saw me his 
eyes looked like dogwood blossoms. “Shoot him,” he yelled. But 
— 33 — 
