Boregas and Tanakas 
III -A Mountain Sheep Hunt in Lower California 
—J. G. M.’s Inning 
By DOUBLE BARREL 
D URING our stay at Las Palmitas, Captain 
Funcke told us a few things about Ins 
past history. He was very reticent, but 
his talk was very entertaining when he chose to 
give us some glimpses of his past life. 1 e a 
started life as a hunter on a sealing schooner, 
had risen first to be head hunter and later to be 
master. He had seen all the worst of Bering 
Sea Alaska and Kamchatka, and had finally been 
put’out of business, along with the other Ameri¬ 
can sealers, by act of Congress. He had then 
taken a position as master of a schooner trad¬ 
ing from San Francisco to the coast of Lower 
California, and had later abandoned this m favor 
of taking camping and hunting parties into the 
country. He told one story which was so re¬ 
markable that I cannot refrain from recounting 
it here. , , , 
It seems that among the sealers the grea es 
prize was the now nearly extinct sea otter. 
Whenever an otter was sighted from a sealing 
schooner, four of the boats were lowered. Each 
boat had two hunters with a heavy rifle and 200 
cartridges per man. Orders were issued to shoot 
every cartridge, but to get otter. The chase was 
pursued to all lengths, for one skm was worth 
from $600 to $i,ooo, according to quality. 
When the captain was prevented from sealing 
by statute and went to Lower California, he 
heard that there were sea otter on that coast, 
and on inquiring at Ensenada, his first port, he 
was told of a man who had lately killed one. 
He saw the man, who proved to be a Mexican 
fisherman. He said there were lots of otter in 
the kelp down the coast, and that he had lately 
killed one with an oar and had sold the skin 
for $20 in gold, and the buyer had sent the skm 
to England. Captain Funcke hard’y credited the 
yarn, but he at once hired the man to fill a 
vacant place on his vessel, a gasolene schooner, 
and started down the coast of the peninsula. 
When they reached the proper point there was 
such a sea on that they had to go on, and the 
captain decided to wait till the return trip. 
As luck would have it, the schooner was 
twenty-four hours late on the return trip, and 
they reached the proper place outside the kelp 
after dark. As there was no wind, they were 
running with the gasolene engine. Captain 
Funcke stopped his engine and started to wait 
all night and investigate in the morning. He 
had very little faith in the man’s story, as he 
had proved to be a great liar in other matters. 
Still, if it proved true, the capatin knew he 
the successful return. 
could resign and hire a boat with Ids own 
money, get some men and make a small for 
tune. Yet, as he waited during the night, h s 
conscience troubled him. He was already late, 
and he had no business to use his employers 
time for his own work. Besides, he had hear 
many wild tales in his time and they al' proved 
untrue when tested. So he gave orders to start 
the engine, and went on to Ensenada and San 
Francisco, determining to try out the matter the 
next trip. He was de’ayed two weeks in San 
Francisco, and this gave his new hand a chance 
,0 go ashore and talk. He ta.ked sea otter, and 
an old German, who had a schooner lying idle, 
took on some men and went down the coast to 
investigate. In ten days the German killed fifty- 
six sea otter and broke up the school. 1 here 
were never many again, though Captain Funcke 
later got six himself. The end of this story 
was: “Fifty-six sea otter at $700 a piece was 
$39,200 and nothing but a square-head whodidnt 
know anything of the fur business.’ Well it 
certainly stood as the finest story of hard luck 1 
ever heard. 
The first day after we made camp at Las i a - 
initas, J. G. M. and Captain Funcke started out 
10 hunt the neighboring mesa to the south of 
us, and having nothing else to do, and being 
once more out of fresh meat, I said that Eleno 
and I would go out and shoot a deer. This was 
more or less a joke, as deer were very rare m 
the neighborhood, and to kill one was rather an 
exceptional event. We started out on horseback 
down the desert, along the base of the moun¬ 
tains, and when we were about four miles out 
1 stopped and killed a jack rabbit with the rifle. 
A mile further on we crossed a deer track. 
Eleno was in front and passed over it without 
noticing it, but as it looked fresh I called him 
back and pointed to it. He agreed that it was 
fresh and we followed the track across the 
desert, where it was plainly marked in the soft 
sand. , 
After about a mile we found where the deer 
had laid down and had evidently spent the previ¬ 
ous night under an ironwood tree, so we tied 
the horses and followed the track on foot. Soon 
we came to fresh droppings, and a little later we 
saw where the deer had evidently been alarmed 
by my shot at the jack rabbit and had run for 
a short distance, then stopped and listened, and 
then gone on slowly. By this time we felt we 
were very close to it and followed cautiously. At 
times we crossed stony flats, where it was mar¬ 
velous to see the way in which Eleno followed 
the tracks. In places for a hundred yards at a 
time the footing would be nothing but so'id rock, 
yet he followed the deer without trouble where 
no evidence of a track seemed to exist. The 
deer had crossed several such flats and fed down 
the little arroyos amid the ironwoods, and we 
followed him at not more than a mile an hour, 
prepared to shoot at any moment. Yet, in spite 
of all our care the deer saw or heard us before 
we located him, and as we approached a little 
arroyo, leaped up and started down it full speed. 
For a long distance there was no open space 
through which I cou’d shoot, so I had to stand 
waiting till the buck—for so it proved to be— 
passed an opening about t 75 yards away. As e 
leaped through this I fired and had the good 
fortune to break his back with the first shot 
We at once went up and killed him, and as I 
