Deer 
Are Plentiful 
in the 
Cascades 
Where Still 
Hunting 
Isa 
Vigorous 
Sport 
ee til ee 


‘i 
“Fin” Whitney and his two bucks at Dog House Cabin. 
Buck Hunting in Oregon 
each year for a Fall trip into the 
Cascades; and as the buck season 
approaches, the fever begins to rise 
until it reaches a climax on the opening 
day with a delirium in which business 
and family are usually forgotten and 
left to shift for themselves. Hugh 
Black, Grover McDonald, “Fin” Whit- 
ney and I planned to leave in Septem- 
ber. 
September 20th rolled around none 
too soon and hurriedly we made prepa- 
rations. Hugh Black is an old packer 
of no mean ability and throws a beauti- 
ful diamond hitch, so we decided to get 
horses at one of the ranches and pack 
in ourselves and save the expense of a 
packer and guide. The country is tre- 
mendously mountainous and wild, but 
most of us had been there before many 
times and were thoroughly familiar 
with the lay of the land. Hugh and 
Grover pulled out in the early evening 
about six hours ahead of us, in order 
to secure the horses and ride them to 
Campers’ Flat, so as to be ready to 
start for the mountains immediately 
after dinner the next day. “Fin” and 
I left town about 3:00 o’clock A. M. the 
next morning. On account of the 
mountain roads and the load we had to 
earry I rented an old Ford touring car 
to make the trip in and left mine at 
home. The old bus was about to fall 
to pieces at any minute and required 
the help of much bailing wire to hold 
it together. However, we made good 
time and reached Oak Ridge about 
° 
y has been my usual custom to plan 
By Dre L.A; STEEVES 
10:00 o’clock. There we secured our 
fire permits and registered, going in 
for a few days. 
We drove on to Jap Hill’s Ranch, the 
last outpost of civilization, where the 
boys had planned to secure the horses. 
We were still twelve miles from Camp- 
ers’ Flat where we were to meet the 
boys for dinner. Here we found Hugh 
and Grover had spent the remainder of 
the night in Jap Hill’s barns and in 
the road ahead we saw the fresh tracks 
of three horses so we knew that every- 
thing was O. K., and that our plan had 
carried out all right. We soon entered 
the timber and traveled the narrow 
road which followed the middle fork of 
the Willamette river, gradually climb- 
ing higher and higher, passing one 
beautiful falls after another. 
We noticed by the tracks in the road 
that the boys had been on a dead gallop 
nearly all the way and if that was an 
evidence of speed, we would have to 
hurry in order to catch up with them 
for dinner. One of my front tires went 
flat on me but we kept on going and 
the road got rougher and narrower. I 
cared not for the tire as long as we 
got there. The getting back would take 
care of itself. 
GON we overtook Hugh and Grover 
who had a fire built and bacon fry- 
ing. Coffee, bacon, fresh bread and a 
quart of apple jelly Hugh’s wife sent 
along cheered us up to a fine point. We 
ran the old junk heap into the brush 
and packed the horses and after scrap- 
ing out the frying pan and taking a 
long drink of cold beverage out of the 
creek, we crossed the foot bridge and 
began the ascent into the cloud-covered 
peaks above. 
HE weather had been warm the last 
few days, although it had rained 
hard the night before and muddied up 
the road considerably, the sun was 
shining as we crossed the foot bridge 
and without a thought of what was 
ahead of us I figured that I would be 
one jump ahead of the boys and wear 
my light army shoes up the mountains 
and change to my hob nails when we 
reached the top some eight miles up. 
We were all soft as could be and while 
the other boys walked along in their 
heavy boots, I would be in better shape 
when we reached Bristow Meadows at 
the top of the mountain. We walked 
along in the dark woods heavy with 
hanging moss, wet with the rain of the 
night before. The horses kept on ahead 
single file in the familiar trail. Scarcely 
a sound was heard except the occasional 
click of a hoof against a rock in the 
trail ahead. We climbed higher and 
higher, zig-zagged back and forth fol- 
lowing around the rims of deep canyons 
with nothing but the tops of trees vis- 
ible below and an occasional glimpse 
of the silver stream. Once in a while 
as we stopped to rest we could hear the 
sound of the river as it roared on the 
rocks below and mixed with the quiet 
rustling of the pine limbs about us. 
Above us and across the canyon 
585 
