730 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 5, 1910. 
A couple of deer and back in camp by 10 o’clock 
was not a bad morning’s work for two men and 
the driver. But enough of this, and now back 
to the main story. 
An hour passed and no dogs within hearing. 
Then N. blew the three long blasts on his horn 
—that is the regulation signal that the hunt is 
over—and came across to me, and the problem 
of getting our game out to the wagon road 
loomed up large and near. We had both read 
in a recent book on camping of the stretcher 
method of carrying a deer, and N. had had pre¬ 
pared the necessary canvas straps. There were 
five of them altogether, three of them each about 
three feet long with sewn loops at each end for 
the poles to go through. This combination 
formed the stretcher proper. The other two 
straps were four or five feet long, also with 
loops, to go over the shoulders of the carriers 
to ease the arms in carrying. Luckily we had 
all of these with us, and the horn brought up 
two more of the party. Now, I do not want to 
'advertise anybody’s wares in particular, but the 
man who invented the little safety hatchet cer¬ 
tainly conferred a great boon on the woodsman 
-—whether amateur or professional—and I would 
not take its weight in silver for mine if I could 
not get another. With it I cut and trimmed a 
couple of stout poles and the stretcher was 
quickly made. The deer was disemboweled and 
laid on the straps, the shoulder supports ad¬ 
justed, and we started. I had the hinder end 
while J. handled the front, with the deer’s ant¬ 
lers in close enough proximity to his rear for 
him to be pretty well punctured should he de¬ 
cide to stop and sit down. The other two went 
ahead to select a path and cut through the 
worst of the briers. 
We were a mile and a half or two miles from 
the end of the wagon trail and the first six or 
seven hundred yards of this little journey was 
through the pocosin. Now, it is a part of the 
game to get your deer out after you have killed 
it—and .we had no hired guides—but that day I 
wished we had. I have helped to handle some 
fairly amiable propositions in the woods, but 
this was the worst trick yet. The buck’s dressed 
weight had been estimated at 160 to 170 pounds 
to begin with, but I know he weighed 800 before 
we got through. The time was October, the day 
was mild—not to say warm—the sun was hot, 
and the trail was abominable. A hard combina¬ 
tion to beat. How those shoulder straps did cut 
into one’s neck; how those horns did catch in 
every brier we came to; and how those same 
briers did catch into us! The ground was very 
uneven and tussocky—from former fires—and 
one never knew whether he was going to step 
up on to some old charred stump or down into 
a soft muddy depression. And the deer kept on 
getting heavier and heavier. Often the two car¬ 
riers would not make more than a hundred yards 
before calling for a change, and when we at 
last reached the shade of the big woods, each 
one of us threw himself down flat and took all 
the rest that was coming. 
But we had to be up and doing. We all re¬ 
membered that other shot and hoped, most de¬ 
voutly, without prejudice to the man who had 
fired it, that it had been a miss. Again we went 
at it with frequent reliefs. The going was bet¬ 
ter here, but the deer was heavier. Fallen logs 
had to be crossed, roots and cypress knees had 
to be negotiated and bushes to be avoided—but 
oh, that pocosin we had come through. We 
kept the horn going at frequent intervals and 
soon a faint response, a whistle, came to us from 
the lake border. This whistling grew more per¬ 
sistent after a while, until somebody suggested 
that the Judge might have a deer, too. Ours 
was deposited for a longer rest, while two of 
us broke through the thickets bordering the lake 
and out into and beyond the scattering pines on 
to the open marsh. At this point the marsh 
made out fully half a mile from the woods and 
was only wet near the shore—the woods, in other 
words—being fairly dry and firm further out. 
We came to the Judge at last seated on a tus¬ 
sock and proudly guarding the second deer of 
the day, luckily a smaller animal than the first. 
The continued whistling brought two more of 
the party, who agreed to get this one out un¬ 
assisted. It was small enough to be shouldered 
by one man, the easiest method of all of carry¬ 
ing a deer if the specimen be not too heavy. The 
entrails are not removed, and the body is laid 
across the back of the neck and the shoulders of 
the carrier with forelegs over one shoulder and 
hind legs over the other. The legs are grasped 
by either hand, and the soft stomach of the deer 
affords an excellent cushion for distributing the 
weight evenly and without bruising or blister¬ 
ing the shoulders. 
This arrangement being made, we returned to 
our original problem. And by the time we 
finally carried the buck to where the wagon 
could come, we four grown men were pretty 
much all in—for the time being, that is. But a 
short rest put us all right for the remaining mile 
and a half of fairly good walking back to camp, 
which we reached about 3 o’clock. Half an hour 
later the wagon came in with the two deer, which 
were then a little more cleanly dressed and 
wiped out before they were strapped to the run¬ 
ning boards of the auto, which was to chug them 
to the station in time for the evening train to 
town. And before our bed time, both carcasses 
were hanging in the cold storage room of the 
ice factory. But we had their livers for 
supper. 
Right in front of camp runs the canal, or 
creek, that drains the lakes, and in it are plenty 
of warmouth perch, the best panfish in camp 
that I know of. So, after a cold bite and a 
short rest I rigged up my fly tackle and started 
after a mess for supper. Using trout flies on 
No. 8 hooks or thereabouts, these gamy little 
fellows give quite exciting sport, much better 
than yanking them out over your head with a 
stiff pole and worm bait. Fifteen nice ones were 
the result, and that supper of baker’s bread—the 
first day in camp, remember—fried warmouth 
and juicy deer liver filled the bill to a T. 
That evening in camp was restful, peaceful 
and serene. Each man had his tale to tell of 
what happened at his stand. Happily, both deer 
had been killed outfight by well-placed shots, 
the Judge getting his at about sixty yards right 
through the heart. All told, the dogs must have 
had up not less than four, and possibly as many 
as half a dozen deer during the hunt, but several 
of them never came within a mile of any of the 
guns. I had seen two, and that satisfied me. I 
do not care so much about actually securing 
game every time I go out after it, but I do love 
to see the wild creatures in the wilds and to 
enjoy the vastness of the big woods and the 
deep swamps, the wide marshes and pocosins. 
But if a deer comes within reasonable range of 
my rifle, I want to kill him, and kill him clean. 
I love to listen to the cry of the heron, the hoot 
of the great horned owl, the rip-rip-rip of the 
leaping deer. To see the swirl in the water 
when the bass strikes the fly, the V-shaped lines 
of the wild goose’s flight, the ripple of the little 
waves in the sunlight. I like to watch for deer 
alone in the deep woods, when the squirrels play 
all around me, and the birds chatter in the 
bushes nearby. 
Early the next morning one of the two autos 
and all of my good friends returned to town, 
some of them with the promise of returning to 
camp a few days later. And I was expecting 
another friend the next morning, to be in camp 
by mid-day or before, so for one day I was 
alone, except for our good cook, D. 
After the autos had gone I patched the canoe. 
And thereby hangs a tale that will bear telling 
here. In May two young men, A. and L., were 
paddling the sixteen-foot canvas canoe through 
the canal on their way out into the lake. This 
canal is not more than eight feet wide and two 
or three feet deep where it leaves the lake, and 
just at the entrance the paddle of one of the 
men struck a large alligator lying in the bed of 
the ditch. Instantly the ’gator grabbed the canoe 
in his powerful jaws, tore a hole through canvas 
and planking, and overturned the boat, throw¬ 
ing out both occupants of course. They scram¬ 
bled up on the marsh in a rather excited and 
angry mood. This unheard of proceeding on 
the part of one of these supposedly harmless 
alligators was too surprising to be taken in all 
at once, but when the significance of the act did 
finally take root in the minds of the chief actors 
in this near-tragedy, the boys prepared to take 
a summary vengeance. One of them pulled up 
the pole set on the marsh to mark the entrance 
to the ditch from the water side, to use in keep¬ 
ing the ’gator interested, while the other re¬ 
turned to camp for a rifle. The one with the 
pole kept the brute busy snapping at it until his 
companion returned, then they worried the ’gator 
until he showed his head, which was immediately 
punctured with a .35 soft-point bullet. When 
taken to camp he measured ten feet seven inches, 
the largest alligator I know of as being prop¬ 
erly measured from that locality. The boys 
buried him nearby, and later I dug up the skull, 
which I now have. 
The injury to the canoe was considerable. 
When first hearing of the incident with no par¬ 
ticulars, I took it for granted that the damage 
had been done by the impact of the creature’s 
armored back, but an examination of the injury 
showed my mistake. There were the tooth 
marks on each side of the bilge, with planking 
torn out by each jaw, the wood work between 
being intact. The canvas was torn over a space 
of about fifteen inches square, and the whole 
thing made a pretty bad wound in the boat’s 
side and bottom. 
While at this place in the preceding June I 
had mended the wood work, putting in five new 
pieces of three-sixteenth-inch cedar with copper 
nails and white-leading the joints. This time I 
had the marine glue and canvas problem to face, 
but the result left the boat as good as new, so 
far as usefulness is concerned. This was my 
first experience with marine glue, and you may 
take it from me that ordinary glue is about as 
sticky as warm butter by comparison. 
