Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper: Autobiography, experiences and observations of Eldred Nathaniel Woodcock during his fifty years of hunting and trapping.Woodcock, E. N. (Eldred Nathaniel)
General
Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper: Autobiography, experiences and observations of Eldred Nathaniel Woodcock during his fifty years of hunting and trapping.
Woodcock, E. N. (Eldred Nathaniel)
Hunting; Trapping
At daylight the next morning I was on the ridge at the place where I
last saw Frank, and by close watch managed to follow his trail while
he was in the hardwood timber, where there was a heavy fall of
leaves; but when he struck into the heavy hemlock timber, I could no
longer track him. However, I had tracked him sufficiently far enough
to see that he had gone back to look for the wounded deer. I made
tracks in the direction I expected the wounded deer would be likely
to lie down. After some searching I found the bed of the deer, also
tracks of a man, which I knew to be Frank. But I could only follow
the trail a short distance from where he had driven the deer out of
its bed. There were plenty of deer tracks all around, but knowing
that the wounded deer would naturally work down the draw, I worked my
way along the hollow, keeping a close lookout for any signs of the
wounded deer that I might chance to cross. At different times, I
found a few drops of blood, but no signs of Frank.
I had worked down the hollow some ways, when I ran onto the wounded
deer; it staggered to its feet, but was too near gone to keep its
feet. I finished it by shooting it in its head. I removed the
entrails as quickly as I could, bent down a sapling and hung the deer
up, and then made tracks down the stream the best I could shouting
and occasionally firing off my gun.
We were in a big wilderness. No roads or inhabitants west of us for
many miles, and this was the course I feared Frank was most likely to
take.
I now began to think that I had a serious job on hands. I kept up the
search all day without getting the least trace of Frank and returned
to camp late that night.
Starting early the next morning, and taking a good lunch with me, I
crossed the head of Winfall Run and over the divide onto the waters
of the Hamersley, continuing to shout and occasionally firing my gun.
I had worked down the run some six or eight miles, when I heard some
one hollow two or three times in quick succession. I was quite
positive it was Frank. It was miles from any inhabitants in a dense
wilderness, and hunters were not common on those parts in those days.
I immediately answered the call, and soon I could hear Frank coming
down the hill at breakneck speed, giving tongue at every jump.
We at once started for camp, Frank eating the lunch I had brought in
my knapsack, and telling of his trials, as we made tracks the best we
were able to for camp. Frank, in telling his story, would cry like a
baby, and then laugh like a boy with a pair of new boots. But he cut
no more boy tricks.
We finished the season's hunt, catching a goodly bunch of fox,
marten, mink and coon, as well as killing a good bunch of deer. Had
fur and venison brought as much in those days, as at the present
time, we would have bought an automobile, and put an end to this
hoofing it.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The White Deer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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