The Bark Covered House: Or, Back In the Woods Again; Being a Graphic and Thrilling Description of Real Pioneer Life in the Wilderness of MichiganNowlin, William
History
The Bark Covered House: Or, Back In the Woods Again; Being a Graphic and Thrilling Description of Real Pioneer Life in the Wilderness of Michigan
Nowlin, William
Dearborn (Mich.); Frontier and pioneer life -- Michigan -- Dearborn
we were going in for making money.
It would be impossible for me to delineate the occurrences incident to
my hunting days. The story told in full would fill a volume, but if it
were not in connection with my father's family and how we got along,
when I was at home with him, I should not mention it at all. As it is, I
will try to describe one day's hunt after deer, which might be called a
successful day, and another hunt after bears, which was not successful
and one or two deer fights. My comrade and I started from father's very
early one morning. A nice tracking snow, three or four inches deep, had
fallen during the fore part of the night. In the morning it was warm and
pleasant. When we came near the head of the windfall, we found the
tracks where three large bucks had been along. It is not common that
those large deer go together. They are generally scattering, one or two,
or with other deer, but in this case, it seemed, three old bucks had
agreed to go together. We followed them about half a mile to the west
until they crossed what is now the old telegraph road in the town of
Taylor, south of where Mr. Putnam lives. We thought the deer went into a
large thicket, that stands there yet. We made up our minds they were
lying in that thicket. William said he would go around and stand on the
ridge, beyond the thicket, in a good place to see them when they were
driven out. I told him I wanted him to be sure and down with one, so
that I could see how they looked. I stood where he left me about half
an hour, to give him plenty of time to get around, then I started along
slow on the tracks.
I followed them about ten or fifteen rods when I found, that instead of
going into the thicket where we supposed, they had turned into a little
thicket, near a fence and clearing that had been made at an early day. I
little thought they were lying there, but sure enough, in a minute, they
jumped up and away they went, one after the other, toward the big
thicket. They seemed desirous of making all the sport of me they could;
as they were running across a little opening they showed me their white
flags. I shot very quickly at the middle one. I told him by the report of
my rifle, which rang out clear on the morning air, that I wanted him to
stop, and he struck his flag.
They were running from me a little diagonally, and were about twenty-five
rods off, when my bullet struck his side, it being partly toward me. They
ran right into the big thicket where we first supposed they lay. I loaded
my rifle and went where they were running when I shot. I saw that the
blood flew in small particles on the snow and I was sure he was ours. He
ran for one breath, got out of my sight and fell dead, having made his
last tracks, being shot through the lights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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