CHAPTER XXIX.

Mr. George T. Pease lives in a log shanty, in the heart of the great Wisconsin pine woods, five miles west of Wausaukee station, on the Milwaukee & Northern Railroad. A beautiful little lake stretches out in front of his door, in which numerous black bass make their home, and several brooks meander through the wilderness not far away, all of which abound in the sprightly, sparkling brook trout. Deer roam over the hills far and near, and when the first "tracking snow" comes, in the van of icy winter, their hoof-prints may be found within a hundred yards of the cabin any morning. Pease is a genial, kind-hearted old man, in whose humble quarters the true sportsman is always welcome. Reared in these woods, and bred in the pure atmosphere that abounds here, a hunter by trade and from necessity, he is a simple, honest child of nature. With the exception of four or five years spent in the service of his country, during the war of the Rebellion, he has lived and hunted in this region since the days of his boyhood, and his gray hairs bespeak for him the respect men always feel for the honest old woodsman.

I spent several days hunting with him in November, 1885, and the intervening nights--or a large portion of each--in talking with him. I learned in that short time to esteem and value him as one of the best guides and hunters I ever knew, and one of the truest friends I have. Although he has been hunting so many years and has always been a close observer of the habits of game; although thoroughly posted on woodcraft in all its details, he is not egotistical as are so many old woodsmen. He never intrudes his opinions on any subject unless asked for them; never dictates what anyone under his guidance shall do. He modestly suggests, and if you do not agree with him, defers cheerfully to your judgment.

He is intelligent, well-informed generally, full of interesting reminiscences of his life in the wilderness, and relates many thrilling episodes in his experience in hunting deer, bear, wolves, etc. He told me that once, when hunting on the Menominee river, he saw a doe lying down, and raised his rifle to shoot her. But before firing he noticed that she had seen him and was struggling to get up. As she did not succeed in this, he concluded that she must have been wounded, and started toward her. She kept struggling, but was unable to rise, and on going to her he found that she had lain down near a large hemlock root, that had curved out of the ground, forming an arch or loop three or four inches high. One of her hind legs had slipped under this root to the knee, and when she had attempted to get up she had probably been thrown violently on her side, dislocating the hip joint and thus rendering it utterly impossible for her to draw the imprisoned leg from under the root. He said the poor creature had apparently been in this pitiable plight several days; that she was starved and emaciated almost to a shadow, and had tramped and pawed a hole in the earth more than a foot deep, over the entire space reached by her fore feet. Had she not been discovered, the poor creature must soon have died from starvation. As it was, she was so weak that when he released her leg from this strange trap she was unable to stand, and he reluctantly killed her, as the speediest, most humane, and, in fact, the only means of ending her misery.

* * * * *

I reached the old man's cabin at about noon. We hunted diligently all the afternoon, and though we saw plenty of fresh tracks everywhere in the newly-fallen snow, neither of us could get sight of a deer, and when we met at the shanty at dark and exchanged notes, Pease was sorely disappointed. The next forenoon was a repetition of this experience, and when we met again at the cabin for dinner, both empty-handed, his disappointment was intensified into despondency. We separated after the noon meal, and when we came in at night, I looked even more dejected and disgusted than ever, and asserted, with a good deal of emphasis, that I did not believe the "blasted" country was any good for game; that I thought he or someone had hunted the deer and shot at them until they were so wild that no man could get within 500 yards of one. He insisted that such was not the case; that he had been killing plenty of deer that fall, and that others had killed a few in the neighborhood, but not enough to spoil the hunting, as I claimed. He said our want of success utterly astonished him; that he was truly sorry; that he could not account for it, and that we should surely make a killing on the morrow.

"Have you seen any fresh tracks to-day?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, plenty of them; haven't you?"

"Well, yes, two or three; but I think the deer that made them were ten miles away when I got there."

"Why," said he, "when I started out this afternoon I skirted along that big swamp, where you hunted in the morning, and I saw where four deer had crossed your track since you went along. One of them was an awful big buck. I took up his trail and followed it in hopes of overtaking him and getting a shot. He roamed and circled around among the hills and through the swamps for, I reckon, more than five miles. I walked just as still as I possibly could, for I knew we were mighty nigh out of meat, and I am gettin' mighty tired of bacon anyhow. But somehow that buck heard me or smelt me, or something, and the first and last I saw of him was just one flip of his tail as he went over a ridge about three hundred yards away. I sat down on a log and waited and studied a long time what to do or where to go next; and finally I concluded I'd just come in and get supper ready by the time you got here. Set up, sir, and have a cup of coffee and some of these baked potatoes and some of this bacon. It ain't much of a supper, but maybe we'll feel a little better after we eat it, anyway."

I surrounded one side of the rough pine table suddenly, and when I got my mouth so full I couldn't talk plain, I said, in a careless, uninterested sort of a way:

"I saw where you sat down on that log."

"Did you?"

"Yes; I sat down and rested there, too. I was just about as tired and as disgusted and as mad as I am now; but after sitting there ten or fifteen minutes, I trudged along through that maple thicket just below there, and when I got through it I saw a big buck smelling along on a doe's track, up on the side-hill, and I killed him and then started on after the doe, and----"

Pease had dropped his knife and fork and was looking at me with his mouth half open and his eyes half shut.

"What did you say?" he inquired in a dazed, half-whispered tone.

"I say I killed the buck and then started----"

"You killed a buck?"

"Yes."

"When?" he gasped, with his mouth and eyes a little wider open.

"This afternoon," said I, calmly and complacently.

"Where?"

"Why just below that thicket; just below where you sat down on the log."

The old man sat and gazed at me for two or three minutes while I continued to eat as if nothing unusual had happened.

"Are you joking?" he said at last.

"No; I'm telling you the straight truth. The liver and heart are hanging out there on the corner of the cabin; go out and look at them."

"Well, I'll be dad blasted!" shouted the old man, as he jumped up and grasped me by the hand. "Why on earth didn't you say so when you first came in? What did you want to deceive me for? Why did you want to do all that kicking about the hunting being so poor?"

"Oh, I just wanted to have a little fun with you."

Throughout that evening Pease was one of the happiest men I ever saw. He seemed, and, in fact, said he was, twice as proud to have me, his guest, kill a deer as he would have been to have killed it himself.

He chatted cheerfully until eleven o'clock before showing any signs of sleepiness. This was about all the game I cared to kill, so I asked Pease to go into the station and get a team to come out and take my meat in. In order to pass the forenoon pleasantly, I took my rifle and started into the woods again. I went at once to the buck I had killed, reaching the carcass shortly after sunrise. I cut down a jack pine, and, trimming off the boughs, made a bed. Then I laid down, took out a book and commenced to read, while waiting for the team and for any deer that might happen along.

But I had not read half a dozen lines when I heard a slight rustling and cracking in the frozen snow, and, looking in the direction of the noise, I saw a young spike buck walking slowly and deliberately down the hill not a hundred yards away. I caught up my express and made a snap shot at him, but in my haste and surprise missed him clear. At the report he stopped, threw up his head and presented a beautiful picture, as well as a fair, easy target.

"Now, my lad," I said to myself, "you are my meat sure."

I was so confident of success this time that I scarcely took any aim at all. Again I scored an inglorious miss and the deer started away on a series of long, high bounds. I threw in another cartridge, held ahead of him, and as he struck the ground the second time I pulled for the third time. Then there was a circus of a kind that a hunter rarely sees. The buck fell to bucking, bleating, and kicking. His hind feet would go into the air like a couple of arrows and with such force that they would snap like a whip cracker. Then he would rear on his hind feet and paw the air; then jump sidewise and backward. He threw himself twice in his gyrations, and each time was on his feet again almost before I could realize that he had gone down. This gymnastic exhibition lasted perhaps two or three minutes, during which time I was so paralyzed with laughter that I could not have shot within six feet of him if I had tried. Besides, I wanted to see the performance out. Finally the bucker recovered his wits and skipped out. I followed and found that he was discharging blood at such a rate that he could not go far. He went into a large thicket. I jumped him three times before I could get a fair shot at him, and could hear him wheeze every time I came near him. Finally I saw him lying a few yards away, but his head was still up and I sent a bullet through his neck. On examination I found that my first shot had cut the point of his breastbone off and had ruptured both his oesophagus and trachea. I dragged him out and laid him by the side of the big buck, and when Pease came in with the team an hour later he said:

"Well, I'll be dad blasted if he hain't got another one."

I shall always remember that hunt as one of the pleasantest of my life, considering the length of time it occupied.