If civilization owes a debt of gratitude to the self-sacrificing
sportsmen who have cleared the Adirondack regions of catamounts and
savage trout, what shall be said of the army which has so nobly
relieved them of the terror of the deer? The deer-slayers have somewhat
celebrated their exploits in print; but I think that justice has never
been done them.
The American deer in the wilderness, left to himself, leads a
comparatively harmless but rather stupid life, with only such excitement
as his own timid fancy raises. It was very seldom that one of his tribe
was eaten by the North American tiger. For a wild animal he is very
domestic, simple in his tastes, regular in his habits, affectionate in
his family. Unfortunately for his repose, his haunch is as tender as his
heart. Of all wild creatures he is one of the most graceful in action,
and he poses with the skill of an experienced model. I have seen the
goats on Mount Pentelicus scatter at the approach of a stranger, climb
to the sharp points of projecting rocks, and attitudinize in the most
self-conscious manner, striking at once those picturesque postures
against the sky with which Oriental pictures have made us and them
familiar. But the whole proceeding was theatrical.
Greece is the home of art, and it is rare to find anything there natural
and unstudied. I presume that these goats have no nonsense about them
when they are alone with the goatherds, any more than the goatherds
have, except when they come to pose in the studio; but the long ages of
culture, the presence always to the eye of the best models and the forms
of immortal beauty, the heroic friezes of the Temple of Theseus, the
marble processions of sacrificial animals, have had a steady molding,
educating influence equal to a society of decorative art upon the people
and the animals who have dwelt in this artistic atmosphere. The Attic
goat has become an artificially artistic being; though of course he is
not now what he was, as a poser, in the days of Polycletus. There is
opportunity for a very instructive essay by Mr. E. A. Freeman on the
decadence of the Attic goat under the influence of the Ottoman Turk.
The American deer, in the free atmosphere of our country, and as yet
untouched by our decorative art, is without self-consciousness, and
all his attitudes are free and unstudied. The favorite position of
the deer--his fore-feet in the shallow margin of the lake, among the
lily-pads, his antlers thrown back and his nose in the air at the
moment he hears the stealthy breaking of a twig in the forest--is still
spirited and graceful, and wholly unaffected by the pictures of him
which the artists have put upon canvas.
Wherever you go in the Northern forest you will find deer-paths. So
plainly marked and well-trodden are they that it is easy to mistake them
for trails made by hunters; but he who follows one of them is soon in
difficulties. He may find himself climbing through cedar thickets an
almost inaccessible cliff, or immersed in the intricacies of a marsh.
The “run,” in one direction, will lead to water; but, in the other,
it climbs the highest hills, to which the deer retires, for safety and
repose, in impenetrable thickets. The hunters, in winter, find them
congregated in “yards,” where they can be surrounded and shot as
easily as our troops shoot Comanche women and children in their winter
villages. These little paths are full of pitfalls among the roots and
stones; and, nimble as the deer is, he sometimes breaks one of his
slender legs in them. Yet he knows how to treat himself without a
surgeon. I knew of a tame deer in a settlement in the edge of the forest
who had the misfortune to break her leg. She immediately disappeared
with a delicacy rare in an invalid, and was not seen for two weeks. Her
friends had given her up, supposing that she had dragged herself away
into the depths of the woods, and died of starvation, when one day she
returned, cured of lameness, but thin as a virgin shadow. She had the
sense to shun the doctor; to lie down in some safe place, and patiently
wait for her leg to heal. I have observed in many of the more refined
animals this sort of shyness, and reluctance to give trouble, which
excite our admiration when noticed in mankind.
The deer is called a timid animal, and taunted with possessing courage
only when he is “at bay”; the stag will fight when he can no longer
flee; and the doe will defend her young in the face of murderous
enemies. The deer gets little credit for this eleventh-hour bravery. But
I think that in any truly Christian condition of society the deer would
not be conspicuous for cowardice. I suppose that if the American girl,
even as she is described in foreign romances, were pursued by bull-dogs,
and fired at from behind fences every time she ventured outdoors, she
would become timid, and reluctant to go abroad. When that golden era
comes which the poets think is behind us, and the prophets declare is
about to be ushered in by the opening of the “vials,” and the killing of
everybody who does not believe as those nations believe which have
the most cannon; when we all live in real concord,--perhaps the
gentle-hearted deer will be respected, and will find that men are not
more savage to the weak than are the cougars and panthers. If the little
spotted fawn can think, it must seem to her a queer world in which the
advent of innocence is hailed by the baying of fierce hounds and the
“ping” of the rifle.
Hunting the deer in the Adirondacks is conducted in the most manly
fashion. There are several methods, and in none of them is a fair chance
to the deer considered. A favorite method with the natives is practiced
in winter, and is called by them “still hunting.” My idea of still
hunting is for one man to go alone into the forest, look about for a
deer, put his wits fairly against the wits of the keen-scented animal,
and kill his deer, or get lost in the attempt. There seems to be a sort
of fairness about this. It is private assassination, tempered with a
little uncertainty about finding your man. The still hunting of the
natives has all the romance and danger attending the slaughter of sheep
in an abattoir. As the snow gets deep, many deer congregate in the
depths of the forest, and keep a place trodden down, which grows larger
as they tramp down the snow in search of food. In time this refuge
becomes a sort of “yard,” surrounded by unbroken snow-banks. The hunters
then make their way to this retreat on snowshoes, and from the top of
the banks pick off the deer at leisure with their rifles, and haul them
away to market, until the enclosure is pretty much emptied. This is one
of the surest methods of exterminating the deer; it is also one of
the most merciful; and, being the plan adopted by our government for
civilizing the Indian, it ought to be popular. The only people who
object to it are the summer sportsmen. They naturally want some pleasure
out of the death of the deer.
Some of our best sportsmen, who desire to protract the pleasure of
slaying deer through as many seasons as possible, object to the practice
of the hunters, who make it their chief business to slaughter as many
deer in a camping season as they can. Their own rule, they say, is
to kill a deer only when they need venison to eat. Their excuse is
specious. What right have these sophists to put themselves into a desert
place, out of the reach of provisions, and then ground a right to slay
deer on their own improvidence? If it is necessary for these people
to have anything to eat, which I doubt, it is not necessary that they
should have the luxury of venison.
One of the most picturesque methods of hunting the poor deer is called
“floating.” The person, with murder in his heart, chooses a cloudy
night, seats himself, rifle in hand, in a canoe, which is noiselessly
paddled by the guide, and explores the shore of the lake or the dark
inlet. In the bow of the boat is a light in a “jack,” the rays of which
are shielded from the boat and its occupants. A deer comes down to feed
upon the lily-pads. The boat approaches him. He looks up, and stands a
moment, terrified or fascinated by the bright flames. In that moment the
sportsman is supposed to shoot the deer. As an historical fact, his hand
usually shakes so that he misses the animal, or only wounds him; and the
stag limps away to die after days of suffering. Usually, however,
the hunters remain out all night, get stiff from cold and the cramped
position in the boat, and, when they return in the morning to camp,
cloud their future existence by the assertion that they “heard a big
buck” moving along the shore, but the people in camp made so much noise
that he was frightened off.
By all odds, the favorite and prevalent mode is hunting with dogs. The
dogs do the hunting, the men the killing. The hounds are sent into the
forest to rouse the deer, and drive him from his cover. They climb the
mountains, strike the trails, and go baying and yelping on the track of
the poor beast. The deer have their established runways, as I said; and,
when they are disturbed in their retreat, they are certain to attempt to
escape by following one which invariably leads to some lake or stream.
All that the hunter has to do is to seat himself by one of these
runways, or sit in a boat on the lake, and wait the coming of the
pursued deer. The frightened beast, fleeing from the unreasoning
brutality of the hounds, will often seek the open country, with a
mistaken confidence in the humanity of man. To kill a deer when he
suddenly passes one on a runway demands presence of mind and quickness
of aim: to shoot him from the boat, after he has plunged panting into
the lake, requires the rare ability to hit a moving object the size of
a deer's head a few rods distant. Either exploit is sufficient to make
a hero of a common man. To paddle up to the swimming deer, and cut his
throat, is a sure means of getting venison, and has its charms for some.
Even women and doctors of divinity have enjoyed this exquisite pleasure.
It cannot be denied that we are so constituted by a wise Creator as to
feel a delight in killing a wild animal which we do not experience in
killing a tame one.
The pleasurable excitement of a deer-hunt has never, I believe, been
regarded from the deer's point of view. I happen to be in a position, by
reason of a lucky Adirondack experience, to present it in that light. I
am sorry if this introduction to my little story has seemed long to
the reader: it is too late now to skip it; but he can recoup himself by
omitting the story.
Early on the morning of the 23d of August, 1877, a doe was feeding on
Basin Mountain. The night had been warm and showery, and the morning
opened in an undecided way. The wind was southerly: it is what the
deer call a dog-wind, having come to know quite well the meaning of “a
southerly wind and a cloudy sky.” The sole companion of the doe was her
only child, a charming little fawn, whose brown coat was just beginning
to be mottled with the beautiful spots which make this young creature
as lovely as the gazelle. The buck, its father, had been that night on a
long tramp across the mountain to Clear Pond, and had not yet returned:
he went ostensibly to feed on the succulent lily-pads there. “He feedeth
among the lilies until the day break and the shadows flee away, and he
should be here by this hour; but he cometh not,” she said, “leaping upon
the mountains, skipping upon the hills.” Clear Pond was too far off for
the young mother to go with her fawn for a night's pleasure. It was a
fashionable watering-place at this season among the deer; and the doe
may have remembered, not without uneasiness, the moonlight meetings of
a frivolous society there. But the buck did not come: he was very likely
sleeping under one of the ledges on Tight Nippin. Was he alone? “I
charge you, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not
nor awake my love till he please.”
The doe was feeding, daintily cropping the tender leaves of the young
shoots, and turning from time to time to regard her offspring. The fawn
had taken his morning meal, and now lay curled up on a bed of moss,
watching contentedly, with his large, soft brown eyes, every movement of
his mother. The great eyes followed her with an alert entreaty; and, if
the mother stepped a pace or two farther away in feeding, the fawn made
a half movement, as if to rise and follow her. You see, she was his
sole dependence in all the world. But he was quickly reassured when she
turned her gaze on him; and if, in alarm, he uttered a plaintive cry,
she bounded to him at once, and, with every demonstration of affection,
licked his mottled skin till it shone again.
It was a pretty picture,--maternal love on the one part, and happy trust
on the other. The doe was a beauty, and would have been so considered
anywhere, as graceful and winning a creature as the sun that day shone
on,--slender limbs, not too heavy flanks, round body, and aristocratic
head, with small ears, and luminous, intelligent, affectionate eyes.
How alert, supple, free, she was! What untaught grace in every movement!
What a charming pose when she lifted her head, and turned it to regard
her child! You would have had a companion picture if you had seen, as I
saw that morning, a baby kicking about among the dry pine-needles on a
ledge above the Au Sable, in the valley below, while its young mother
sat near, with an easel before her, touching in the color of a reluctant
landscape, giving a quick look at the sky and the outline of the Twin
Mountains, and bestowing every third glance upon the laughing boy,--art
in its infancy.
The doe lifted her head a little with a quick motion, and turned her ear
to the south. Had she heard something? Probably it was only the south
wind in the balsams. There was silence all about in the forest. If the
doe had heard anything, it was one of the distant noises of the world.
There are in the woods occasional moanings, premonitions of change,
which are inaudible to the dull ears of men, but which, I have no
doubt, the forest-folk hear and understand. If the doe's suspicions were
excited for an instant, they were gone as soon. With an affectionate
glance at her fawn, she continued picking up her breakfast.
But suddenly she started, head erect, eyes dilated, a tremor in her
limbs. She took a step; she turned her head to the south; she listened
intently. There was a sound,--a distant, prolonged note, bell-toned,
pervading the woods, shaking the air in smooth vibrations. It was
repeated. The doe had no doubt now. She shook like the sensitive mimosa
when a footstep approaches. It was the baying of a hound! It was far
off,--at the foot of the mountain. Time enough to fly; time enough to
put miles between her and the hound, before he should come upon her
fresh trail; time enough to escape away through the dense forest, and
hide in the recesses of Panther Gorge; yes, time enough. But there was
the fawn. The cry of the hound was repeated, more distinct this time.
The mother instinctively bounded away a few paces. The fawn started up
with an anxious bleat: the doe turned; she came back; she couldn't leave
it. She bent over it, and licked it, and seemed to say, “Come, my child:
we are pursued: we must go.” She walked away towards the west, and the
little thing skipped after her. It was slow going for the slender legs,
over the fallen logs, and through the rasping bushes. The doe bounded in
advance, and waited: the fawn scrambled after her, slipping and tumbling
along, very groggy yet on its legs, and whining a good deal because its
mother kept always moving away from it. The fawn evidently did not hear
the hound: the little innocent would even have looked sweetly at the
dog, and tried to make friends with it, if the brute had been rushing
upon him. By all the means at her command the doe urged her young one
on; but it was slow work. She might have been a mile away while they
were making a few rods. Whenever the fawn caught up, he was quite
content to frisk about. He wanted more breakfast, for one thing; and his
mother wouldn't stand still. She moved on continually; and his weak legs
were tangled in the roots of the narrow deer-path.
Shortly came a sound that threw the doe into a panic of terror,--a
short, sharp yelp, followed by a prolonged howl, caught up and reechoed
by other bayings along the mountain-side. The doe knew what that meant.
One hound had caught her trail, and the whole pack responded to the
“view-halloo.” The danger was certain now; it was near. She could not
crawl on in this way: the dogs would soon be upon them. She turned again
for flight: the fawn, scrambling after her, tumbled over, and bleated
piteously. The baying, emphasized now by the yelp of certainty, came
nearer. Flight with the fawn was impossible. The doe returned and stood
by it, head erect, and nostrils distended. She stood perfectly still,
but trembling. Perhaps she was thinking. The fawn took advantage of the
situation, and began to draw his luncheon ration. The doe seemed to
have made up her mind. She let him finish. The fawn, having taken all he
wanted, lay down contentedly, and the doe licked him for a moment. Then,
with the swiftness of a bird, she dashed away, and in a moment was lost
in the forest. She went in the direction of the hounds.
According to all human calculations, she was going into the jaws of
death. So she was: all human calculations are selfish. She kept straight
on, hearing the baying every moment more distinctly. She descended
the slope of the mountain until she reached the more open forest of
hard-wood. It was freer going here, and the cry of the pack echoed more
resoundingly in the great spaces. She was going due east, when (judging
by the sound, the hounds were not far off, though they were still hidden
by a ridge) she turned short away to the north, and kept on at a
good pace. In five minutes more she heard the sharp, exultant yelp of
discovery, and then the deep-mouthed howl of pursuit. The hounds had
struck her trail where she turned, and the fawn was safe.
The doe was in good running condition, the ground was not bad, and she
felt the exhilaration of the chase. For the moment, fear left her, and
she bounded on with the exaltation of triumph. For a quarter of an hour
she went on at a slapping pace, clearing the moose-bushes with bound
after bound, flying over the fallen logs, pausing neither for brook nor
ravine. The baying of the hounds grew fainter behind her. But she struck
a bad piece of going, a dead-wood slash. It was marvelous to see her
skim over it, leaping among its intricacies, and not breaking her
slender legs. No other living animal could do it. But it was killing
work. She began to pant fearfully; she lost ground. The baying of the
hounds was nearer. She climbed the hard-wood hill at a slower gait; but,
once on more level, free ground, her breath came back to her, and she
stretched away with new courage, and maybe a sort of contempt of her
heavy pursuers.
After running at high speed perhaps half a mile farther, it occurred
to her that it would be safe now to turn to the west, and, by a wide
circuit, seek her fawn. But, at the moment, she heard a sound that
chilled her heart. It was the cry of a hound to the west of her. The
crafty brute had made the circuit of the slash, and cut off her retreat.
There was nothing to do but to keep on; and on she went, still to the
north, with the noise of the pack behind her. In five minutes more she
had passed into a hillside clearing. Cows and young steers were grazing
there. She heard a tinkle of bells. Below her, down the mountain slope,
were other clearings, broken by patches of woods. Fences intervened;
and a mile or two down lay the valley, the shining Au Sable, and the
peaceful farmhouses. That way also her hereditary enemies were. Not a
merciful heart in all that lovely valley. She hesitated: it was only for
an instant. She must cross the Slidebrook Valley if possible, and gain
the mountain opposite. She bounded on; she stopped. What was that? From
the valley ahead came the cry of a searching hound. All the devils were
loose this morning. Every way was closed but one, and that led straight
down the mountain to the cluster of houses. Conspicuous among them was
a slender white wooden spire. The doe did not know that it was the spire
of a Christian chapel. But perhaps she thought that human pity dwelt
there, and would be more merciful than the teeth of the hounds.
“The hounds are baying on my track:
O white man! will you send me back?”
In a panic, frightened animals will always flee to human-kind from the
danger of more savage foes. They always make a mistake in doing so.
Perhaps the trait is the survival of an era of peace on earth; perhaps
it is a prophecy of the golden age of the future. The business of this
age is murder,--the slaughter of animals, the slaughter of fellow-men,
by the wholesale. Hilarious poets who have never fired a gun write
hunting-songs,--Ti-ra-la: and good bishops write war-songs,--Ave the
Czar!
The hunted doe went down the “open,” clearing the fences splendidly,
flying along the stony path. It was a beautiful sight. But consider what
a shot it was! If the deer, now, could only have been caught I No doubt
there were tenderhearted people in the valley who would have spared her
life, shut her up in a stable, and petted her. Was there one who
would have let her go back to her waiting-fawn? It is the business of
civilization to tame or kill.
The doe went on. She left the sawmill on John's Brook to her right; she
turned into a wood-path. As she approached Slide Brook, she saw a boy
standing by a tree with a raised rifle. The dogs were not in sight;
but she could hear them coming down the hill. There was no time for
hesitation. With a tremendous burst of speed she cleared the stream,
and, as she touched the bank, heard the “ping” of a rifle bullet in the
air above her. The cruel sound gave wings to the poor thing. In a moment
more she was in the opening: she leaped into the traveled road. Which
way? Below her in the wood was a load of hay: a man and a boy, with
pitchforks in their hands, were running towards her. She turned south,
and flew along the street. The town was up. Women and children ran to
the doors and windows; men snatched their rifles; shots were fired; at
the big boarding-houses, the summer boarders, who never have anything
to do, came out and cheered; a campstool was thrown from a veranda. Some
young fellows shooting at a mark in the meadow saw the flying deer, and
popped away at her; but they were accustomed to a mark that stood still.
It was all so sudden! There were twenty people who were just going to
shoot her; when the doe leaped the road fence, and went away across a
marsh toward the foothills. It was a fearful gauntlet to run. But nobody
except the deer considered it in that light. Everybody told what he was
just going to do; everybody who had seen the performance was a kind of
hero,--everybody except the deer. For days and days it was the subject
of conversation; and the summer boarders kept their guns at hand,
expecting another deer would come to be shot at.
The doe went away to the foothills, going now slower, and evidently
fatigued, if not frightened half to death. Nothing is so appalling to a
recluse as half a mile of summer boarders. As the deer entered the thin
woods, she saw a rabble of people start across the meadow in pursuit.
By this time, the dogs, panting, and lolling out their tongues, came
swinging along, keeping the trail, like stupids, and consequently losing
ground when the deer doubled. But, when the doe had got into the timber,
she heard the savage brutes howling across the meadow. (It is well
enough, perhaps, to say that nobody offered to shoot the dogs.)
The courage of the panting fugitive was not gone: she was game to the
tip of her high-bred ears. But the fearful pace at which she had just
been going told on her. Her legs trembled, and her heart beat like a
trip-hammer. She slowed her speed perforce, but still fled industriously
up the right bank of the stream. When she had gone a couple of miles,
and the dogs were evidently gaining again, she crossed the broad, deep
brook, climbed the steep left bank, and fled on in the direction of the
Mount-Marcy trail. The fording of the river threw the hounds off for
a time. She knew, by their uncertain yelping up and down the opposite
bank, that she had a little respite: she used it, however, to push on
until the baying was faint in her ears; and then she dropped, exhausted,
upon the ground.
This rest, brief as it was, saved her life. Roused again by the baying
pack, she leaped forward with better speed, though without that keen
feeling of exhilarating flight that she had in the morning. It was still
a race for life; but the odds were in her--favor, she thought. She
did not appreciate the dogged persistence of the hounds, nor had any
inspiration told her that the race is not to the swift.
She was a little confused in her mind where to go; but an instinct kept
her course to the left, and consequently farther away from her fawn.
Going now slower, and now faster, as the pursuit seemed more distant
or nearer, she kept to the southwest, crossed the stream again, left
Panther Gorge on her right, and ran on by Haystack and Skylight in the
direction of the Upper Au Sable Pond. I do not know her exact course
through this maze of mountains, swamps, ravines, and frightful
wildernesses. I only know that the poor thing worked her way along
painfully, with sinking heart and unsteady limbs, lying down “dead beat”
at intervals, and then spurred on by the cry of the remorseless dogs,
until, late in the afternoon, she staggered down the shoulder of
Bartlett, and stood upon the shore of the lake. If she could put that
piece of water between her and her pursuers, she would be safe. Had she
strength to swim it?
At her first step into the water she saw a sight that sent her back with
a bound. There was a boat mid-lake: two men were in it. One was rowing:
the other had a gun in his hand. They were looking towards her: they had
seen her. (She did not know that they had heard the baying of hounds on
the mountains, and had been lying in wait for her an hour.) What should
she do? The hounds were drawing near. No escape that way, even if she
could still run. With only a moment's hesitation she plunged into the
lake, and struck obliquely across. Her tired legs could not propel the
tired body rapidly. She saw the boat headed for her. She turned toward
the centre of the lake. The boat turned. She could hear the rattle of
the oarlocks. It was gaining on her. Then there was a silence. Then
there was a splash of the water just ahead of her, followed by a roar
round the lake, the words “Confound it all!” and a rattle of the oars
again. The doe saw the boat nearing her. She turned irresolutely to
the shore whence she came: the dogs were lapping the water, and howling
there. She turned again to the center of the lake.
The brave, pretty creature was quite exhausted now. In a moment more,
with a rush of water, the boat was on her, and the man at the oars had
leaned over and caught her by the tail.
“Knock her on the head with that paddle!” he shouted to the gentleman in
the stern.
The gentleman was a gentleman, with a kind, smooth-shaven face, and
might have been a minister of some sort of everlasting gospel. He took
the paddle in his hand. Just then the doe turned her head, and looked at
him with her great, appealing eyes.
“I can't do it! my soul, I can't do it!” and he dropped the paddle. “Oh,
let her go!”
“Let H. go!” was the only response of the guide as he slung the deer
round, whipped out his hunting-knife, and made a pass that severed her
jugular.
And the gentleman ate that night of the venison.
The buck returned about the middle of the afternoon. The fawn was
bleating piteously, hungry and lonesome. The buck was surprised. He
looked about in the forest. He took a circuit, and came back. His doe
was nowhere to be seen. He looked down at the fawn in a helpless sort of
way. The fawn appealed for his supper. The buck had nothing whatever to
give his child,--nothing but his sympathy. If he said anything, this is
what he said: “I'm the head of this family; but, really, this is a novel
case. I've nothing whatever for you. I don't know what to do. I've the
feelings of a father; but you can't live on them. Let us travel.”
The buck walked away: the little one toddled after him. They disappeared
in the forest.