shining army. “Don’t you fret your- 
self,” he said; “that kind don’t kill.” 
Nor were Ben’s calculations far 
wrong; for, with twenty dogs and near- 
ly thirty hunters, the whole day was 
spent without bagging a thing. Almost 
half the number got shots, and some of 
them were very close shots; but no- 
body scored. One man shot both bar- 
rels at ten steps at an enormous buck 
that was caught in a fallen telephone 
wire; but the buck escaped unscathed. 
Finally, at sundown, three hunters, 
shooting in unison, brought to earth 
a small deer; indeed, it was a fawn. 
And it fell in the water. And it had 
in it some forty buckshot holes, a hole 
for every spot on its coat. As it was 
drawn out of the water, it was a sorry 
sight. I fully sympathized with Ben 
when I heard him mumbling something 
about being ashamed of “murdering 
that baby.” But the worst was yet to 
come. We got the mighty crowd at 
last packed into their automobiles, and 
along the running board of the last one 
we lashed their diminutive quarry. 
Despite its size they were proud of it. 
“It’s something,” they said; “we got a 
deer anyhow.” But they had thirty 
miles to drive to the city; and when 
they got there they found that the deer 
had dropped ofr! It was the last straw, 
the sad end of a misspent hunt. Some 
of the men patrolled the dark road for 
a good part of the night, but the 
venison was never recovered. Later I 
learned that two or three negroes living 
along the road had betrayed their prob- 
able guilt by letting it be known that 
they had meat enough to enable them 
not to do any work for a week or so. 
The Grapevine Buck 
A very odd happening was brought 
about on one occasion by this tendency 
of wounded deer to take the water. A 
ten-point buck with very wide-spread- 
ing antlers had been wounded. His 
right foreleg had been broken at the 
knee. With a pack of six hounds after 
him, he had kept his distance for about 
three miles. Finally he reached the deep 
creek for which he had been heading. 
As he swam off, a looped grapevine 
that had been hanging from a bush 
over the water caught him neatly be- 
low the brow tines. It had him fast 
when we came up. On the shore the 
dogs were clamoring. In the water was 
the game old buck. He would swim out 
to the limit of the grapevine, which 
would gently but firmly draw him back. 
On account of the dogs, he did not try 
to turn to clear himself. A single shot 
put an end to the deer’s misfortune. I 
now have the antlers in my collection; 
and the force of the buck’s struggles is 
plainly evident on them. Although the 
648 
horns were quite hard when taken, the 
grapevine rubbed them deeply, so that 
there are shallow but distinct grooves 
in the beams in front, just below the 
first tines. 
A Paper Chase 
It is no common thing to kill a deer 
after a paper chase; yet such a case is 
recorded in the annals of deer-hunting 
in Pennsylvania. A young woman 
schoolteacher of Fields, Lycoming 
County, on her way to the schoolhouse 
which was perched on the mountain 
side, noticed a large buck grazing in an 
abandoned pasture near the road. The 
stag saw the girl but paid little at- 
tention to her. At that moment, some 
of the pupils coming up, the young 
teacher sent them back to the settle- 
ment for hunters. She, meanwhile, de- 
cided to follow the stag. As she 
craftily trailed it, she made a sign 
for the hunters by strewing -bits of 
paper along the track she had taken 
through the forests and old fields. The 
hunters quickly followed the trail, and 
soon came upon the girl and the stag. 
The buck was shot by the young 
teacher’s brother. 
A Fight in the Water 
A wounded buck, if pushed by 
hounds, will almost invariably take to 
the water. He likes a shallow pond 
where he can stand, face the dogs that 
are over their depth, and beat them off 
with horns and hoofs. I have frequent- 
ly seen a buck thus bayed. At such a 
time a large deer is a savage opponent. 
His neck bulges. His eyes gleam. His 
whole coat “frizzles;” that is, the hair 
stands out, giving him a very ferocious 
appearance. At such a time it takes a 
good pack of hounds to worst a deer. 
After he has once struck a dog fairly, 
the dog may do a lot of swimming and 
barking and other kinds of bluffing, but 
he is staying away from those hoofs. 
But if both deer and dogs are swim- 
ming, the dogs have the advantage, 
especially if the deer is handicapped by 
a wound. 
YEAR ago I saw the end of such 
a combat. My brother and I were 
hunting, and a large peg-horn ran to 
him. He shot it down. It jumped up 
and made off for a pond nearby. We 
had but one hound, but a very swift 
and savage dog. The buck went out 
into deep water, deeper than he in- 
tended going, I think, but the dog 
hardly gave him a chance to turn. So, 
far off in the pond they had it out. 
The buck would rise and throw himself 
over the dog, carrying his enemy down. 
The hound would stay down a few 
seconds and then rise almost suffocated. 
But he would gamely go at it again. 
This continued for ten minutes. Both 
contestants were clearly weakening. 
Finally, by a swift manoeuvre, the dog 
got the buck by the ear, and the buck 
was too weak to shake him off.. Then 
the dog sank his own head until noth- 
ing but his ears, eyes, and nose showed; 
and he sank the buck’s nose under the 
water. In this way the dog drowned 
the buck. I thought it an intelligent 
piece of work; but it was surely a 
savage scene to watch. After it was 
over, we sent a naked negro into the 
pond after the deer. 
ing back for shore, a big bull alligator 
rose not far off, and the swimming 
negro caught sight of that grim and 
ominous head. I had not known until 
then that a human being could swim so 
fast. The Hawaiian Duke would have 
looked like a piker in that pond. 
“Knock Um!” 
In July, 1916, a dreadful storm swept 
certain sections of the coast of South 
Carolina. In many places, crops were 
utterly destroyed. The negroes were 
the chief sufferers. Their gardens and 
field-crops had literally been wiped out, 
and their stock had been killed by 
falling timber. 
S° great was the distress that the 
negroes refer to the time as “the 
panic.” They were painfully short on 
rations. When, therefore, a big freshet 
came down the Santee River, many of 
them went out in cypress canoes to see 
what could be gathered in the shape of 
meat. The fact that seasons were 
closed made small difference, for the 
people were on the verge of starvation. 
Two negroes (Paris Green (!) and 
Prince Alston by name) were padding 
in the middle of the river when they 
spied a rack of velveted antlers heading 
their way. Paris was in the bow and 
Prince was in the stern. Prince is in- 
telligent and Paris is not. “Now, 
Paris,” said Prince, “this is we chance. 
This is we meat. Now, Paris, don’t 
knock um, ’case ‘he will sink. Ketch 
um by de horn. We can hold um and 
kill um.” 
T was sage council, for a deer in a 
red coat will sink, whereas a “gray” 
deer will float. But the temptation 
was too great, and the emotions of 
Paris, stimulated by hunger, were 
too acute. As the canoe sidled up to 
the plunging deer, the negro rose, 
whirled up his paddle, and brought it 
down with all his might on the fore- 
head between the antlers. The big 
(Continued on page 691) 
As he was turn-_ 
