Deer Hunt Turned Into a Bear Hunt.
A friend by the name of Dingman invited me to come to his camp on
More's Run, a tributary of the Sinnamahoning. This was something like
forty years ago, when deer were plentiful and several men in this
section made it a business to hunt for the money that there was in
it, and Nathan Dingman was one of those men. It was about eight miles
from my place to Mr. Dingman's camp.
One morning after we had a fall of snow, I packed my knapsack with as
much grub stake as I was able to carry, with my gun and blanket, and
started over the hill to Mr. Dingman's camp. After I had crossed the
divide, I did not go far before I began to see deer tracks. There was
no road or trail down the run, and the run was pretty well filled
with timber. I had about all that I could handle without deer tracks,
but when I was within about a mile of Mr. Dingman's camp, I came onto
the trail of several deer that had only been gone a few minutes. I
could not stand it longer, so I hung my pack and blanket up in a tree
and took my track back up the stream until I was quite sure that I
was well out of range of the deer, and then climbed the ridge until I
was near the top of the hill and on advantageous ground.
The direction of the trail of the deer where it crossed the stream
led me to think that the deer were going south, or down the ridge but
on the contrary they had turned to the right and up the ridge. I had
not gone far along the ridge before I began a sharp lookout. I
suddenly found the deer lying in a thicket of low laurel. They broke
from cover at a breakneck speed. I fired both barrels at them with
the best aim that I was able to get, and had the satisfaction of
seeing one of the deer, a good sized doe, stumble and partly fall,
then hobble on in the direction that the other had gone.
It was nearly sundown and I only followed the trail a short distance
when I could plainly see that the deer had a foreleg broken, and she
soon left the trail of the others, and went down the hill all alone.
Knowing that the wounded deer would soon lay down if not disturbed. I
left the trail, went back, got my pack, blanket and went on down the
creek to Mr. Dingman's camp. I found Mr. Dingman about to sit down to
a supper of roast potatoes, venison and other good things to be found
in abundance in the woods in those days.
The next morning we were out at daybreak after the wounded doe. Mr.
Dingman said that when the doe was started up that she would come to
water, and that she would stop on the creek below where I had left
the trail, which led down the hill until in sight of the creek, when
it turned to the right, then went back up the hill only a few yards
to the right of her trail where she had gone down.
When I saw what the doe had done, I thought to myself, old lady, you
are well onto the game, and we will have lots of sport before we get
you. I was well aware that she had seen me when I passed by on her
trail where she had gone down the hill, and thinking that she would
go to the creek below where Mr. Dingman was and told him the game the
doe was playing. He said that she would come to water at the point
just below the camp, and that he would go down there and watch, while
I should follow the track through. I told Mr. Dingman that I was
afraid that we were too late, and that the doe had already gone out,
that she had made her bed so that she could watch her trail where she
went down the hill, and had slipped out after I had gone down the
hill on her trail.
Mr. Dingman thought that he could get the runway before she would get
through, even if she had gone out when I came through on her trail
down the hill. In hopes that the deer had not taken the trail and lit
out when I came through the hill, I worked my way cautiously back up
the hill, only occasionally going in sight of the trail so as to keep
her course, but as I feared, when I was about halfway up the hill, I
found her bed, but the doe was gone. I took the trail and followed it
up the hill until she struck the trail of the deer that she was with
when I first started them, and instead of going down the ridge, she
took the back trail of the other deer. I followed it back until near
where I had wounded her, when she again broke down the hill and
crossed the creek near where I first found their trail, and had gone
back onto the same ridge that she had come from.
Now the only thing for me to do was to leave the trail and go after
Mr. Dingman again. When I found him and we got back to camp, it was
about noon, so we got a warm dinner before continuing the chase. When
we got up to where I had left the trail, we held council and made our
plans for the next move, and decided that as the old lady was
continually doing the unexpected, we would follow her track, one
going on each side of the trail a few yards from it.
We had only gone a short distance up the hill when we found the old
lady's bed, where she had laid down, so that she could watch back on
her trail, where she had come down on the opposite hillside. We did
not go far when the trail turned to the left and went up the side of
the ridge toward the head of the creek. We continued along the trail
one on either side and soon we came to where a large hemlock tree had
fallen parallel with the side of the hill. Mr. Dingman was on the
upper side and above the fallen tree, while the deer tracks led away
below the tree. All of a sudden I heard the report of Mr. Dingman's
rifle, so I stood still for a minute, and hearing nothing more I went
to see the cause of the shooting. The doe had gone beyond the fallen
tree, then turned back and went about midway of the tree, on the
upper side and lay down. Mr. Dingman caught a glimpse of the old lady
as she went out, but did not catch her.
We did not follow the doe far from where she lay behind the fallen
tree, for we crossed the trail of a bear going west, and partly in
the direction of that of the wounded deer, which continued to work
her cards on us all afternoon without our getting sight of her. At
dusk we trailed her into a small thicket at the edge of the farm
owned by a man by the name of Foster, at the extreme head of the run.
As it was too late in the day to do any more with the old doe, we
concluded to go to Mr. Foster's and stay over night, and take the
trail early in the morning. It was snowing a little and we thought
that the thicket would be an easy place to find our game, should it
snow enough to cover the tracks. In the morning when we got up, we
found six or eight inches of snow on the ground, that had fallen
during the night. We had an early breakfast, and started out to again
play the game with the broken legged doe.
Before we got to the edge of the woods, we struck the trail of some
animal, that had gone across the field in the early part of the night
before it had snowed much. We were not positive what sort of an
animal it was, whether man or beast. The trail was leading straight
across the field without a curve in it, and was making straight to a
laurel patch that was one and a half miles away on the Taggart farm,
less than a mile below Coudersport.
Mr. Dingman said that it was a bear. I admitted that it was a bear
all right, but replied that I would say it was making for the
Adirondack Mountains in New York, rather than the laurel patch on the
Taggert farm. We did not have far to go to make sure, and a good part
of the distance was across farms, so we concluded to hunt bear a
while, and give the old doe a rest for a short time. As Mr. Dingman
said, the bear made straight for the laurel patch.
There was not more than 15 or 20 acres in the patch, so we thought
that we would circle it and make sure that the bear was still in the
laurel. We found that the bear was there all right, so Mr. Dingman
selected a place where he thought the bear would come out when he was
routed from his nest, while I was to follow the trail and drive out
the bear. I followed until near the center of the patch, when I came
onto a small open place forty or fifty feet square. This open space
was covered with a heavy growth of wild grass which partly held the
snow from getting close to the ground, and I could see the trail of
the bear through this grass and loose snow very plain until nearly
the opposite side of the open space, and there I could see a bunch of
snow. I was sure that it was the bear that made the bunch.
I thought the matter over for a minute, then concluded to back out
and go after Mr. Dingman, and see what he thought would be best in
order to make a sure thing of Bruin's capture. Mr. Dingman thought
the best thing to do was to go up town and get plenty of help so as
to thoroughly surround the laurel, and make sure of Bruin. I
objected, as I thought it best to try our own luck, and if we failed
we could still get plenty of help. We followed my track back to where
I had turned, and concluded to both fire at the bunch at the same
time, hit or miss as luck would have it. When we fired at the bunch
there was a shaking of snow, and bruin rolled out but was unable to
rise to his feet. On examination we found that one ball had entered
his shoulder. It was a short job to get bruin out to the road, and
take him up to town where we sold him to Mr. Stebbins, a merchant,
and then we made tracks back to see if we could find the broken
legged doe. We found by circling the thicket that she was there, and
we had the good luck to get her. We drove her out, and thus ended one
of the liveliest day's sport that we ever had.