850 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 26, 1910. 
age canal for a crossing place. Here the deer 
sometimes crossed, too, though a bridge had been 
recently laid across the canal not more than 
seventy-five yards away. The third stand was 
the haystacks, and the fourth the point of woods. 
Mr. D. and N. had the two latter. I was using 
the same rifle before the trigger pull had been 
altered. I had never shot it on deer, but at alli¬ 
gators it had shown its power and accuracy, and 
the long, dragging military trigger pull had not 
been so very objectionable in this kind of shoot¬ 
ing where plenty of time and deliberation in aim¬ 
ing were possible. I wanted to try it on deer, 
and that day I had my chance and met my 
Waterloo. 
The position was up a small pine on the bank 
of the canal, near the bridge and cattle break. 
A plank had been nailed across a couple of limbs 
twelve or fifteen feet up for a foot rest, and 
another a couple of feet above for a seat. It 
was a comfortable and fairly easy position to 
shoot from, and the fact that an open broom- 
straw field stretched right and left for half a 
mile one way and half that distance the other, 
with a width of 200 yards, put it up to the man 
to make good if a deer came out to him. The 
broomstraw was high, in many places over my 
shoulder, and was interspersed with a few scat¬ 
tering bushes and patches of briers. But, gen¬ 
erally speaking, it was quite open. 
It was a cool day in November, and I sat up 
there and shivered for an hour or two—time was 
of no consequence nor matter of record—with 
the dogs sometimes within hearing and some¬ 
times not. I sat quiet, except for the shivering, 
and several birds became quite friendly. I re¬ 
member a beautiful male bluebird that at close 
quarters gazed at the strange intruder with its 
liquid black eyes. A winter wren paid me a 
visit, too, and two or three sparrows and a 
phoebe. But my interest in all these faded away 
into insignificance when the voices of the dogs 
began to draw nearer. Heading my way, too. 
At last I saw the deer moving in the open pine 
woods the other side of the broomstraw field. 
Out of sight behind some bushes; indistinctly 
viewed again, until at length two deer broke out 
into the open, heading for the cattle break. On 
they came, zig-zagging one way and the other, 
as a deer usually runs before dogs deliberate 
and unhurried in their movements, and leaping 
easily and lightly over the high straw., I pre¬ 
pared for business. When a hundred yards away 
they halted to listen and observe. The second 
one was completely hidden in the high broom¬ 
straw ; the other showed its head only. I drew 
down the front sight until the ivory bead showed 
where I thought the deer’s shoulder should be 
and pulled the trigger. Neither deer moved. 
This worried me. I had felt the gun pull off at 
the long drag of the trigger and all confidence 
in the gun—or in myself, rather—left me. It 
was the first time I ever got real flurried in 
shooting a deer, but the flurry came that time. 
I tried again. The one I was shooting at started 
moving around, but with tail down. The other 
three shots were pumped in very much at ran¬ 
dom, I am afraid, with the deer in various posi¬ 
tions and always getting further away, and at 
the last crack of the gun he disappeared com¬ 
pletely. The other was now leaping off straight 
away, heading back to the woods in a diagonal 
line. I slipped in another clip of cartridges and 
emptied the magazine at the now flying second 
deer. Then I sat still for a moment and said 
things. I suppose that most of us, if we ever 
get into a truthful mood and start confessing, 
might relate somewhat similar experiences—if 
we would. Anyway, this happened as told, and 
I lay the blame only partly on the gun. Well, 
I was doing no good up in the tree any longer 
—though I dreaded facing the others—so came 
down aand went over to where I had last seen 
the first one. Here I found him, stone dead, 
with a bullet hole in the center of the forehead. 
Two of the other shots had taken effect, but 
in the hindquarters, I am sorry to confess. 
This fusillade quickly brought up the other 
hunters, and I got it good and hard. It was 
all deserved, I felt, but I asked each one to try 
the trigger pull on my rifle before condemning 
me utterly. All did so, and the genuine criticism 
decreased, though the guying still holds good 
whenever the others feel that I need a good 
taking down. Three days later from the same 
stand I killed a big buck under almost identical 
conditions with a single bullet from my .25-35 
through the heart. This is why K. told me he 
did not need ten shots to kill his ’coon. 
The day following we again tried the south 
drive. Ordinarily one drive is not taken oftener 
than once a week or so, but judging from the 
sign, deer were exceptionally plentiful that sea¬ 
son. Besides, there were guests in camp to whom 
both N. and Mr. D. wished to show especial 
favors. 
Seven of us started out in single file, each 
leading a dog. At the entrance to the woods D. 
took two dogs and turned to the left to turn 
them loose in the pocosin with instructions to 
come back to the lake and occupy the box stand 
when his dogs had started a deer. Mr. D. 
stopped off at the cypress stand and M. at an 
open place in the woods. A curious thing hap¬ 
pened a little later. The four of us were fol¬ 
lowing the trail through the rather open woods 
in single file, each leading a dog and making no 
effort to move without noise. Suddenly N., who 
was leading and just ahead of me, dropped his 
dog chain and threw his rifle to his shoulder. 
Looking forward in line with his aim I saw a 
large wild gobbler with neck upstretched and 
standing perfectly still. He was not more than 
thirty yards distant. N. did not shoot-—the sea¬ 
son had not yet opened—but he covered the bird 
fairly, and he is a cool and certain shot. At 
some sound or movement the turkey rushed into 
the air, along with several others, while the rest 
of the gang made off at full speed through the 
woods, running. It is a little unusual to walk 
up on turkeys in this way and we all enjoyed 
the experience. I killed my Thanksgiving dinner 
in these same woods a few years ago while on 
a deer stand, the bird being a nice fat hen. It 
happened in this wise: 
I was stationed in a very open woodland glade 
with large, scattering forest trees on all sides, 
and but little underbrush between them. The 
fact that I was on a stand did not keep me from 
sitting down. I found a nice, soft place on some 
holly roots and had made myself comfortable 
until such time as game might be expected. It 
is most interesting to sit in the big woods in 
this way, keeping perfectly quiet and as immov¬ 
able as possible. Almost anything woodsy is 
liable to occur, and this time was no exception. 
A rustle in the leaves behind me caused me to 
turn my head, and as I did so I heard a turkey 
cluck. Quickly sliding off the roots on to the 
moist leaves and facing about, I again heard the 
welcome sound. Peering cautiously in the direc¬ 
tion from which it came I soon espied a turkey 
walking among a thin growth of low reeds and 
quite unsuspicious of my presence. Waiting 
until he crossed an opening in the reeds where 
his whole body was exposed to view, I pulled 
on him. With a rush and roar of wings the rest 
of the gang soared up from the ground, some 
alighting in trees not far away and one seem¬ 
ingly within shot. I laid the foresight against 
his body and fired again. Much to my surprise 
the turkey did not move an inch that I could 
see. The next shot brought him crashing down 
through the treetops, and I heard him hit the 
ground with a thud that told of a good heavy 
bird. Quickly reloading, I made for the place 
where the first one had been when shot at, and 
found him dead forty-one yards from the stand. 
Then I went to pick up the other-—but there was 
no turkey there. I was so confident that he was 
my meat that I spent at least half an hour search¬ 
ing for his body, but I did not find it, and have 
never found out what became of that bird. Prob¬ 
ably it was merely winged and went off to fall a 
prey to some prowling wildcat, but I hope the cat 
found and killed him quickly, as I hate to leave 
wounded game to suffer. 
But forward again. N. took off two more 
dogs and turned them loose in the pocosin to 
our left. Then returning, took the remaining 
two further along in the woods. K. and my¬ 
self moved to the right and went out on the 
open marsh again. N. and G. took stands fur¬ 
ther around, the former at the ladder stand in 
the pocosin aand the latter in the woods. I cut 
down a small pine to make a seat for K. and 
then moved on around about a hundred yards 
further to nearly opposite G.’s stand in the 
woods. The acoustics of this place again both¬ 
ered us, and each on our return had very dif¬ 
ferent tales to tell of what the dogs had been 
doing. I only heard the last two to any extent. 
They soon got up a deer and moved it about 
and around a good deal, sometimes in the lake 
and sometimes in the woods and pocosin. Then 
I heard a single shot away beyond K. in the 
direction of camp, and concluded that M. had 
moved from the woods to the lake border. This 
supposition turned out later to be correct. Mean¬ 
while the two dogs most in evidence to me were 
getting nearer and finally crossed the open 
marsh and went into the woods not more than 
150 yards from my stand. Their deer had evi¬ 
dently been along there before K. and I had 
reached our stands. The dogs took their quarry 
up through the woods again and almost out of 
hearing, when a shot rolled out nearly opposite 
me. “That’s G.,” thought I. The dogs came on 
and passed the position occupied by G., and soon 
after stopped. I went over and found him some¬ 
what excited, though hardly as much so as one 
might expect of a young man just after shoot¬ 
ing his first deer. He was much perturbed at 
the result of his shot. He said that he had a 
fair shot, and that the deer had fallen at the 
crack of his gun. He was so certain that he 
had killed it that he had not fired again when 
the deer got to its feet and staggered out of 
sight in the thickets between the woods and the 
lake. 
“What did the dogs do?” I inquired. 
“They’ve gone on again,” he replied, r 
