204 
FOREST AND STREAM 
So the afternoon was spent in jerking the best 
part of the doe and getting duffle in shape for a 
hard forenoon’s tramp. Then followed a long- 
luxurious lounge on the fragrant browse, smok¬ 
ing, musing and mapping out plans for an au¬ 
tumn hunt, to last until cold weather drove me 
out of the woods. As for the dull, hard routine 
of daily work by which most of us must win our 
daily bread, I decided to strike against that—at 
least for the season. One may work always, if 
he will; the lame and lazy will see to it that he 
has the chance. But successful hunting—deer 
hunting—can only be done for a few weeks at 
the proper time and season; and the acquisition 
of such a hunting dog as Pete is the event of a 
lifetime. It was the dog that decided me to 
make the fall hunt in the wilderness to the west¬ 
ward of Pine Creek, where, though deer were 
not as numerous, they were much more accessible 
than in the Blockhouse Range; and besides, I 
had a very neat little camp there within two 
miles of the stage road, which made it easy to 
utilize every pound of venison not needed in 
camp. At sunrise the next morning Pete and I 
turned our faces toward the clearing; at noon 
we were resting at the big pine stump which 
marks the terminus of the road, and at 4 P. M. 
were at home. That evening and the morning 
of the next day were devoted to getting a change 
of flannels, laying in supplies and organizing gen¬ 
erally for a long hunt. 
At 2 P. M. we were jolting over the Pine 
Creek road en route for fresh fields and pas¬ 
tures new; and Pete was so sore from his recent 
cat work that I tipped the driver to let him ride. 
He curled down in the stern sheets of the lum¬ 
bering old conveyance in a way that showed it 
was no new chromo to him; and at 4 P. M„ just 
twenty-four hours from the time of reaching 
home, we were standing on the east bank of Pine 
Creek, with all our groceries around us. At this 
point the valley had rather a civilized and busi¬ 
ness-like appearance. “The Company” (Phelps 
& Dodge) had built a large house and larger 
barn, with a storehouse, in which there was al¬ 
ways a good stock of supplies—and the post- 
office. There was also a neat little church, 
wherein services were held semi-occasionally, 
and “The Meadows,” as the place was called, in¬ 
cluded a farm containing 100 acres of rich allu¬ 
vial bottom land, and there were two powerful 
old-fashioned saw mills, known all over the coun¬ 
try as the “Strap Mills.” 
The contrast between the east and west banks 
of the stream was something startling. On the 
east bank the constant clang and crash of the 
saws, the loud spank of the boards as they 
dropped into place, the rough voices of the team¬ 
sters, and all of the various noises incident to a 
busy lumbering establishment. On the opposite 
side, a dense, unbroken .wilderness, extending 
from the water’s edge nearly forty miles to the 
west and south without a clearing. True, there 
were old, weed-grown lumber roads and moul¬ 
dering wrecks of lumber camps; but these only 
added to the desolation, and did not in the least 
decrease the chances for deer, nor did the nois'- 
works at the Meadows disturb them. On the 
contrary, they were very apt to be found lying 
on the face of the mountain overlooking the val¬ 
ley, where they could hear and see what was 
going on below. This state of things was largely 
attributable to the fact that owners, bosses and 
mill hands were bitterly opposed to hounding. 
Not a man among them was fool enough to be¬ 
lieve that a pack of dogs or wolves could go bay¬ 
ing and howling among the deer without frighten¬ 
ing them away—far away—to another range.And 
it was a cold day for the hound that got caught 
after a deer in sight of hearing of the Strap Mill 
hands. 
When a hound was heard running on the hill 
it was usual for a hand to pick up his rifle with 
the remark, “I guess I’ll go an' see if I can get 
a shot;” which simply meant beating a hunting 
party out of the deer and sinking every possible 
hound in the creek, by fair means or foul. If a 
lawsuit resulted, as it sometimes did, the money 
and influence of the company were quickly at the 
defendant’s back, with public opinion also on his 
side; and though scores of deer dogs were thus 
“treated,” I never knew a prosecutor to get a dol¬ 
lar or a verdict for his dog. 
The little camp before mentioned was a short 
two miles from the Mills, and reached by an easy 
trail that crept gradually up the face of the moun¬ 
tain to within a hundred feet of the summit, 
where, in a small circular basin, beside a cool, 
clear spring, stood the rough cMfin. 
It was necessary to ford the stream, and, as 
there was too much duffle for a single trip, a box 
of supplies was left at the Mill. With the ex¬ 
ception of a loose fresh bear skin, a square box 
is about the worst load a man ever toted through 
the woods. The most comfortable way to man¬ 
age it is to empty the contents into a grain bag, 
kick the box into the shin-hopples and walk off 
with the bag on your shoulder. The creek was 
forded—the man wading, the dog swimming— 
and the ascent was made easily in less than an 
hour. 'It ended at a little three-sided inclosure 
which looked like an unfinished pig pen. The 
dimensions were 8x5 ft. on inside; height 5% ft. 
in front, 3 ft. at back; front open. There was no 
roof; but a few light poles running fore and aft 
seemed intended to support one; in fact the roof 
was in the knapsack; it was a simple sheet of 
oiled drilling 9x7 ft., and was made to go over 
all by stretching and tacking in place. Such a 
roof is better than bark, as it cannot warp, is im¬ 
pervious to any storm, and cannot be used as fire¬ 
wood by the swamp loafers, who delight in de¬ 
stroying the camps of outsiders—an “outsider” 
being any man outside of their immediate neigh¬ 
borhood and acquaintance. Now, I had noticed 
that these woods vagrants never stopped to 
bother with an old roofless camp; because, in 
the first place, the dry hemlock leaves from the 
bedding sift down to the earth and forms a black, 
slimy mulch in a few weeks, which requires con¬ 
siderable work and a strong blaze to render dry 
and sweet. And secondly, in the autumn when 
bark will not peel, or in the summer when there 
is no axe to peel it with, the fixing a roof in 
shape to shed rain requires too much labor, of 
which they are notably economical. So I had 
come to adopt the light, portable roof; and it 
proved so satisfactory that it has been a perma¬ 
nency with me for the past thirty years. With 
this and the pocket hatchet I can in a few min¬ 
utes make a camp that will keep a party of three 
dry in the hardest rainstorm, and it weighs less 
than 3 pounds. 
An hour’s work sufficed to clean up the camp, 
fix the roof, clear out the spring, and get a good 
supply of hemlock bedding and night wood. Then 
came the evening smoke and lounge, so dear to 
the heart of every hunter. The night was still 
and fine, there was a young moon, and the little 
rill from the spring broke over the brink of the 
narrow basin with a silvery murmur that was 
very suggestive of sleep, while at intervals the 
metallic clank of the saws at the Mills below 
was borne upward by the night zephyrs, only to 
sink into silence again as the gentle breeze shift¬ 
ed or fell off. The owls, always numerous along 
the valley of Pine Creek, were holding a noisy 
caucus in the hemlocks near the camp, and occa¬ 
sionally one more venturesome than his fellows 
would come flapping silently into the firelight, 
take a brief survey of the surroundings, and 
vanish into darkness again. There was at least 
one pleasant, cozy spot in the wilderness on that 
November night. 
And on the morrow the hunt commenced with 
a break of good luck. Before we were a mile 
from camp Pete winded a deer, which he roaded 
up to and pointed in his best form, and I suc¬ 
ceeded in getting very close before it jumped 
from its bed. The deer fell dead at the crack 
of the first barrel, and it was one of the “re¬ 
markable shots” wherein luck is the leading 
factor. The bead had been drawn on the white 
hair behind; but the bullet flew high, ranged 
along the back and crashed through the head, 
breaking the horns apart and scattering the 
brains. I am always thankful for such luck, 
though I do not put in a claim for marksman¬ 
ship when the bullet strikes a foot higher than I 
intended. It was a fine yearling buck in the 
“long blue,” sleek, round and fat. Before noon 
it was in camp, and I hardly need say that the 
dinner consisted largely of broiled venison that 
day. In the afternoon the saddle and skin, nice¬ 
ly packet, went down to the Meadows to be sent 
home by the mail wagon, and a lot of supplies 
were brought to camp in return. 
The second day’s hunt resulted in getting 
another deer, after which my recollection of 
events is not so clear. I know there were heavy 
autumn gales with rain, when the roaring of the 
storm in the forest sounded precisely like a storm 
at sea, and the weather rendered hunting useless. 
There were times also when the leaves were so 
frozen and noisy that a deer could hear a man 
walk forty rods away, and on the whole I think 
there were not more than a dozen days of really 
good still-hunting during the four or five weeks 
I hunted from that camp. I have forgotten, too, 
just how many deer I killed, but less than a 
dozen, anyhow, and for nearly all of them I was 
under obligations to Pete, whose knowledge and 
sagacity on a deer hunt were something wonder¬ 
ful. It was amusing to see the look of silent 
reproach he would give me if, in creeping up to 
a deer, I happened to break a stick or make a 
noisy step; he knew the value of silence, and in 
following a wounded deer he never gave tongue, 
but made his race swiftly and without noise. 
When, however, he had caught and killed his 
deer, he would stay by it for hours, barking loud¬ 
ly at intervals, and occasionally giving a long, 
loud howl. If no one came to his assistance he 
would work his way back to his master and try 
to explain in simple dog language that there was 
a dead deer in the distance and help was needed 
to bring it into camp. When he had succeeded 
in making himself understood and was leading 
the way to his quarry, he was a proud dog, and 
