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
I was working the trail to the best of my ability and knew that I was
close to the game, when my attention was drawn by the chirping of
those blue jays which were down the side of a hill. I was working the
trail so as to be on vantage ground and could see from where I was
standing that the trail had turned slightly down the hill along the
side of a fallen tree and in the direction of the chirping of the
jays. This led me to think that the jays were scolding the deer, so I
cautiously advanced a few steps down the hill, expecting every moment
to see the deer. While I was watching down the hill, I heard a slight
noise to my right and partly behind me. I looked in the direction in
which the noise came from and was surprised to catch a glimpse of the
deer jumping the log near where I had last seen the trail. The log
hid the deer from my sight so that I was unable to get a shot at it.
The deer had lain down close to the log, and had I taken a few more
steps in the direction I was going instead of giving attention to the
jays I would have seen the deer and made my word good the first time.
It was too late in the day to follow the trail farther at this time,
knowing that the deer would run a long distance before stopping. As I
had a team engaged to take me to my camp and I was anxious to get
there on the first tracking snow, I concluded to give the white deer
a rest a few days until I returned from camp in the big woods. I was
in camp only a few days when the snow went off, so I came home. I had
only been home a day or two when a man by the name of Hill came to my
house in great haste. He had been cutting logs en a hill, and looking
across onto a hill opposite where he was working, saw the white deer,
so came to tell we what he had seen. I at once took my gun and
started after the deer. I went up the hill in the direction that Mr.
Hill had seen the deer until I was quite sure that I was well above
the deer, then cautiously worked my way down the side of that hill.
There being no snow on the ground and the deer being white, I soon
discovered it lying in its bed. I cautiously crept up within shooting
distance and fired, killing the deer instantly.
I will explain how it happened that these deer disappeared so
suddenly at the time Judge Stebens accused me of killing the white
deer and the wager was made between the Judge and your humble
servant. A man by the name of Frank Williams had shot the deer
breaking a foreleg at the knee joint, and this caused the deer to
remain hidden away until it recovered from the wound. The leg or
joint was stiff when the deer was killed and the force of the bullet
was so spent that it lay against the skin after shattering the knee
joint and I still have the ball which I took from the knee. I had the
deer mounted and Mrs. Boyington took it as she was collecting freaks
and curios of this country.
CHAPTER XXXV.
A Day of Luck.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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