THREE OF A KIND.
Early autumn's frosts had tinged the foliage of the birch, maple, oak,
and elm trees, that intermingle in the great pine forests, with a
thousand rich colors and shades of gold, brown, olive, pink, and
crimson, while the pines, the hemlocks, the firs, and the cedars still
wore their dark mantels of perennial green, and all Nature was clad in
her sweetest smiles. A solitary woodpecker, perched on the topmost
branch of a dead giant of the forest, reaching out far above the
surrounding network of leafy branches, from which he might survey the
surrounding country, sounded his morning reveille and awaited the coming
of his mate. The dry leaves with which mother earth was carpeted,
rustled now and again to the bound of the saucy red squirrel, the
darting hither and thither of the shy wood-mouse, or the tread of the
stupid, half-witted porcupine. The chill October wind soughed through
the swaying tree-tops, laden with the rich ozone that gives life,
health, and happiness to all animate beings that are permitted to inhale
it.
On such a morning, and amid such a scene of natural loveliness, I left
the train at Junction City, on the Wisconsin Central Railway, started
on a three-mile jaunt to a logging camp, for a day or two on a deer
roundup. I reached my destination at nine o'clock. The men had long
since gone to their work, but the "boss" had returned to camp to attend
to some business in hand, and, welcoming me with the generous
hospitality that is always shown by these sturdy sons of the forest to
strangers, bade me make myself at home as long as I cared to stay. To my
inquiry as to the presence of game in the vicinity, he said there was
plenty of it, and that the men saw one or more deer nearly every day
while going to or returning from their work, which was only a mile away.
I lost no time in getting out and entering an old slashing to the east
of the camp where the foreman said signs were plentiful. I had not gone
more than half a mile, when, turning to the left, on an old logging
road, I saw several fresh tracks of deer that had been feeding there
that morning. It was now eleven o'clock in the forenoon and I had no
hope of finding the game on foot at that late hour, but depended
entirely upon jumping a deer from its bed and upon having to risk, in
all probability, a running shot. I moved very cautiously, however, and
was on the _qui vive_ for any straggler that might perchance be moving.
Every foot of ground that came within the scope of my vision was
carefully scanned and every sound or movement of leaf or shrub, no
matter how slight, received the most careful attention, during long and
frequent pauses, before proceeding on my way.
I followed the road through various turns, along the bed of a slight
ravine, and as I rounded one of its abrupt bends that gave me a view of
a considerable expanse of hill-side, I stopped again to reconnoitre. The
ground was covered with a dense growth of weeds, raspberry briers, and
wild-cherry bushes that had sprung up since the timber had been cut off,
all of which had been stricken by recent frosts, and dried by subsequent
sun and wind. In these dry weeds I saw a slight movement, and on careful
examination was able to distinguish a faint outline of a doe, standing
partially behind a large stump, a hundred yards away. Her head and
shoulders were entirely hidden by the stump, and I had to step back some
distance before I could get sight of a vital part to shoot at. As her
shoulder came in view I knelt on my right knee, rested my left elbow on
my left knee, and, drawing a fine bead on her shoulder, fired. She
dropped in her tracks. My aim was a little higher than I intended, and
the bullet, passing through her shoulder blades high up, severed the
spine between them on its way, killing her as suddenly as if it had
entered the brain. At the report of the rifle a young buck bounded out
of the brush near by and waved me a vaunting farewell as he disappeared
over the ridge, not giving me even a fair running shot. I dressed the
doe and went back to camp for dinner, the welcome notes of the huge old
tin horn, floating in musical cadence through the forest, summoning me
at that moment to that much needed repast.
After dinner I went out on another old unused logging road, leading to
the south, and, following it a few hundred yards, branched off to
another which led to the southwest. A number of fallen trees, lying
across these, gave me frequent opportunities to mount their prostrate
trunks and look over large tracts of surrounding country. In thus
sauntering and looking I had spent an hour or more when, on passing an
unusually dense clump of tall dry weeds that stood near the road, I was
startled by a sudden crashing and rattling among them, and an instant
later two large does broke cover at the farther side and started across
a narrow open space. But before they reached the farther side of it the
voice of my Winchester express was reverberating among the lofty pines,
and a cloud of smoke hung between me and where I had last seen them. I
sprang to one side to avoid this, but they had both disappeared in the
thicket, and I could still hear one of them crashing away toward the
green woods. I felt sure that I had hit the other, and, going to where I
had last seen her, I found blood, hair, and several small bits of flesh
on the ground and the neighboring weeds. Following the trail a distance
of fifty feet, I found her lying dead with her throat cut, and, in fact,
a considerable portion of it shot away. The express bullet, driven by a
heavy charge of powder, has such a high velocity that when it strikes
flesh it invariably makes a big hole in it. One hind leg was also broken
squarely off at the knee and the bone protruded through the skin.
I stood pondering and puzzling over this strange phenomenon. How in the
name of wonder could one bullet break her hind leg and cut her throat? I
stooped down and examined the wound. To my surprise, I found that it had
not been made with a bullet at all. The joint was dislocated and the
skin torn away until the disjointed member hung only by a narrow
segment. Then the mystery was deeper than ever. What could possibly have
caused this violent and terrible wound? It had been made after I shot,
for at that time the agile creature was bounding over logs and through
clumps of brush with all the grace and airiness of her sylph-like
nature. I turned, took up her back track, and, following it thirty or
forty feet, came to a fallen tamarack sapling about six inches in
diameter, that laid up about a foot from the ground. The track showed
that the poor creature, in one of her frantic leaps, just after being
hit, came down with her fore feet on one side of this pole and her hind
feet on the other; that one hind foot had slipped on the soft earth and
slid under the pole to her knee, and that the next bound had brought it
up against the pole in the form of a lever--much as a logger would place
his handspike under it in attempting to throw it out of his way--and the
pole, being far too long and heavy to yield to her strength, the leg had
been snapped short off.
I describe this incident merely as one of the many strange and
mysterious ones that come under the observation of woodsmen, and not
with any desire to give pain to sensitive and sympathetic readers.
The beautiful animal did not suffer long from this hurt, however, for
she was dead when I reached her, within perhaps three or four minutes
after I fired the fatal shot. I saved her head and had it mounted and it
hangs beside that of the buck whose taking off has been described and
whose throat was also neatly severed by the bullet. They were two
remarkable shots.
After dressing this deer I returned to the old burn in which I had
killed the doe in the morning, and took a stand on a high, flat-top
stump, which commanded a good view of a large tract of surrounding
country. I felt certain that the young buck that was with her when I
killed her would come back toward night to look up his companion, for he
probably did not realize that she was dead. I stood within thirty yards
of her carcass and for an hour kept a close watch in every direction,
turning slowly from one position to another, so that any game that came
in sight could not detect the movement and would, if seeing me at all,
consider me one of the numerous old high stumps with which the landscape
was marked. Toward sundown a large, handsome buck came out of the green
woods half a mile away, walking deliberately toward me. I could see only
a proud head and spreading antlers, and an occasional glimpse of his
silvery-gray back as he marched with stately but cautious tread through
the dry weeds. He stopped frequently to look and listen for danger, or
the coy maidens of his kind, of whom he was in search. Oh, how I longed
for a shot at him! With bated breath and throbbing heart I watched his
slow progress across the open country. But, alas! the wind (what little
there was) was wrong. When within about 200 yards of me he scented me
and bounded squarely sidewise as though a rattlesnake had bitten him,
uttering at the same time one of those peculiarly thrilling whistles
that might have been heard in the stillness of the evening a mile or
more. He struck a picturesque attitude and scanned the country in every
direction, trying to locate the danger but could not. After a few
seconds he made another high bound, stopped, and whistled again. I stood
perfectly still, and he could make nothing animate out of the inanimate
objects about him. He leaped hither and thither, snorted, whistled, and
sniffed the air as we have seen a wild colt do when liberated in a
pasture field after long confinement in his stall.
Although still unable to satisfy himself as to the whereabouts of his
foe, he finally seemed to decide that that was not a healthy
neighborhood for him, and, taking his back trail, started to get out of
it by a series of twenty-foot leaps. I was tempted to hazard a shot at
him, but could see such a small portion of his body when standing that
the chances were against making a hit. Besides, as already stated, I
felt sure of a shot at shorter range by keeping still. I watched and
listened closely in every direction. The sun had gone down. Night was
silently wrapping her somber mantle over the vast wilderness, and the
only sounds that broke the oppressive stillness were the occasional
croakings of the raven as he winged his stately flight to his rookery,
and the low, solemn sighing of the autumn breezes through the pine tops.
I was benumbed with cold, and was tempted to desert my post and make a
run for camp. I raised my rifle to my shoulder to see if I could yet see
the sights, for stars were beginning to sparkle in the firmament. Yes;
the little gold bead at the muzzle still gleamed in the twilight, with
all the brilliancy of one of the lamps of heaven. I turned to take a
last look in the direction of the carcass of my morning's kill,
and--imagine my astonishment if you can--there stood the young buck,
licking the body of his fallen mate! How he ever got there through all
those brush and weeds without my hearing or seeing him will always
remain a profound mystery to me. But a ball from my express entering his
shoulder and passing out at his flank laid him dead by the side of his
companion, and completed the best score I ever made on deer--three in
one day--and I had fired but three shots in all.