May 25, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
657 
the Plains in Early Days 
Across 
I T was my fond wish to take back East with me 
a deer’s head with enormous antlers of my 
own capture. With this end in view we cleaned 
up our weapons, loaded them with extra care 
and plunged into the dense wood, and on find¬ 
ing a deer lick at a broad place on the creek, 
took up our positions within easy range and 
awaited developments. The gnats were out in 
force, compelling us to divide our time between 
them and watching for the deer’s appearance. 
Finally, after what seemed an hour of tortured 
silence, our vigils were rewarded by the presence 
of a doe and very little fawn at the lick. The 
doe walked into the stream and drank thirstily, 
the fawn attempting to follow, but was deterred 
by the apparent fear of wetting its feet. 
Having satisfied its thirst, the doe stood at 
the creek’s edge cropping the new growth from 
the bushes which lined the bank, when John 
nudged me, indicating with his eyes for me to 
look into the thicket. Following the direction 
of his gaze I discerned the outlines of a good- 
sized and well-antlered buck, almost concealed 
by the underbrush, who seemed to be guarding 
his wife and child. In attempting to change my 
cramped attitude in order to relieve the tension 
of my nerves before risking a shot, a dry twig 
snapped beneath my foot. It was but a faint 
sound, yet the acute ears of doe and buck de¬ 
tected it and both bounded away. The buck 
dashed into an open glade, and though nearly 
twenty rods distant, both John and I improved 
the opportunity to shoot. To our surprise the 
animal fell and rolled partly over. Springing to 
our feet we raced over the intervening space to 
end the buck’s struggles with revolver or knife. 
Ere we- had covered half the distance, however, 
the brute was on his feet again and making 
lusty leaps to escape. 
“He’s a goner,” said John disappointedly, when 
the deer fell once more and rolled and kicked 
tremendously. 
Out came our revolvers and a hasty shot from 
each sped after the struggling creature with the 
only apparent effect to spur him to renewed 
effort to escape. He clambered to his feet, but 
instead of running away turned and faced us 
menacingly. We fired again, when shaking his 
head, the buck charged directly upon us. We 
sprang aside, running in opposite directions, and 
the brute put after John, who gave him another 
shot, then ran for dear life. I dared not fire for 
fear of hitting John, so I improved the occasion 
to reload my rifle. By this time John had wrig¬ 
gled into a dense thicket through which the deer’s 
antlers would not allow him to follow, especially 
as they were yet tender from the spring shedding. 
I managed to get into position for an unob¬ 
structed shot and let drive, aiming as best I 
could just back of the brute’s fore leg. Being 
on his right side the chances of the shot prov¬ 
ing fatal were greatly lessened. Still the bullet 
gave a serious wound, and though the buck ran, 
his gait was wobbly and weak. John had re¬ 
loaded his rifle by this time and he sent a bullet 
speeding after the vanishing animal. We had 
By SAMUEL MANSFIELD STONE 
{Concluded from last week.) 
no difficulty in tracing the buck, but unfortu¬ 
nately for my purpose the antlers were in velvet 
and soft and imperfectly developed, and the best 
prong had been broken in the animal’s struggles, 
so that it hung limp, spoiling the effect of the 
whole arrangement. With John’s knife we skinned 
a portion of the carcass and retraced our way 
back to camp. 
On coming within sight of the plateau where 
our ponies were staked during the day time, we 
were alarmed to behold a couple of wagons and 
a dozen horses halted on the upper side of the 
branch, across the gulch from our ponies. Our 
first thought was that the owner of the shack 
had returned, and that we would have to get out 
of a bad scrape as best we could. As we ap¬ 
proached our ponies, several of the men came to 
the brink of the ravine on their side and in¬ 
quired where they could find a place to cross 
the gulch. We assured them that we were 
strangers and were consequently unable to en¬ 
lighten them. Eurther conversation assured us 
that our fears as to their possible identity were 
groundless, they being unaware of the existence 
of the shack. They were cattlemen, bound for 
Western Kansas. 
After a little further conversation John and I 
started down the gulch to the shack, leading our 
ponies to their usual place of tether. We had 
an excellent meal of tenderloin cuts and spent 
the evening planning for the next day’s hunt. 
But that hunt was destined not to take place. 
Just after breakfast the next morning I experi¬ 
enced a recurrence of the ague symptoms with 
this difference, that it was much more severe 
than the former one. 
“There’s no two ways about it,” said John; 
“you’ve got to break up that ague or it’ll break 
you up.” 
“How am I to do it?” 
“Quinine’s the only thing on earth so far as 
anyone has ever found out that’ll do the busi¬ 
ness,” and John regarded me in a manner denot¬ 
ing anxiety, and I shall always believe that there 
were tears in his eyes, as he said I would have 
to get to a drug store “just about as lively quick 
as yer pony can hustle.” 
A sudden thought seemed to strike John; for 
he jumped up as though something had stung 
him, dashed out of the shack and off up the 
gulch before I could recover from my surprise 
enough to ask an explanation. He was soon 
back, bringing a dose of quinine that he had 
gotten from the travelers on the plateau. 
“I happened to think that may be those folks 
might be supplied with quinine, for it is con¬ 
sidered one of the prime necessities of life in 
this region. But they only had a short supply, 
and as three of their men are using it every day 
and they have no idea when they’ll be able to 
get any more, they were mighty saving of it. I 
don’t see any way but you’ll have to put for 
civilization as fast as yer pony’ll take you,” and 
the poor fellow turned and walked away. 
Then John said that two more men had joined 
the party up the gulch during the night, coming 
in a single wagon. They didn't want to take the 
wagon any further, and he thought they’d sell 
it very cheaply. I asked him what he wanted 
a wagon for and he looked at me pityingly. 
“You are the jayhawker, old man, that’ll need 
the wagon before you are many days older.” 
I tried to laugh him out of the belief, but he 
was persistent in the declaration, saying that I 
would find myself so weak before I could find 
relief that it would be simply an impossibility 
for me to sit in the saddle. Thus he convinced 
me and as I felt unequal to the task I requested 
him to go and make a dicker for the vehicle. 
He soon returned to the top of the bluff in front 
of the shack with the whole outfit, naming the 
price its owner demanded. I quickly closed the 
bargain, which also included the harness. 
The next morning, feeling well and strong 
again, I tried to convince John that the threat¬ 
ened ague was but a myth, that I had, in fact, 
recovered already and felt as well as ever, but- 
he assured me that the disease was intermittent 
and would at the outset return every second day. 
I then determined to fit the harness on Skeezik 
and give him a turn to the wagon. He had be¬ 
come such a mild-mannered, tractable brute that 
I anticipated no trouble, although a stranger to 
wagon work. The pony maintained his wonted 
phlegmatic attitude during the harnessing process 
and he was soon between the shafts, and I 
seated in the wagon ready for a start. 
“Get up, Skeezik,” I remarked, giving him a 
gentle flick with the whip. He made a single 
step forward and stopped. Up went his head 
with a snort. Cocking one eye around, he gave 
me a sort of funny look as much as to ask if 
I was really in earnest. My response was an¬ 
other cut with the whip. Then the fun began. 
Starting off at a round lope as if under the sad¬ 
dle, he made the discovery that the wagon was 
following. The animal evidently thought he was 
being pursued by something foreign to the situ¬ 
ation. In fact I more than half believe he had 
in mind the locomotive that chased him and 
tooted at him. At any rate, he lit out for all 
he was worth, buckling right down to a hard 
run across the plain. For a time I let him 
follow his own bent, then fearing we would get 
further away than we could retrace that day, 
I bore with a firm hand upon one rein, thus 
giving a curve to the course which would ulti¬ 
mately fetch us back somewhere near the start¬ 
ing point. Things seemed to go all right for 
a while and then the surface of the plain began 
to grow humpy. This lent variety to the experi¬ 
ence, but did not especially enhance its pleas¬ 
ures. In fact, it seemed as though the wagon 
was in the air about as much of the time as it 
was on the ground. As we were going in a 
circle, it required some ingenuity to prevent the 
vehicle from landing on its side instead of on the 
wheels, when it would take an extra high flight 
after hitting a hummock. 
His inability to escape from the pursuing at¬ 
tachment evidently pained Skeezik. After fifteen 
minutes of running tactics without distancing his 
