A DEER YARD
"Would you fellows like to visit a deer yard?" Pat asked at breakfast the next morning when the subject of the day's program had been brought up.
"Would we!" Upton fairly shouted it. "Say, Pat, do you mean that there is a really, truly sure enough deer yard anywhere near here? I've read about 'em, and I'd give all my old shoes to see one."
"Right O, my fine bucko! You shall see one, and it won't cost you so much as a shoestring," replied Pat. "It's not over a mile from camp, and on the ridge just above it is one of those deadfalls for bear that Alec built last fall. We'll take that in and kill two birds with one stone if you say so. There are some marten traps on that same ridge that I want to have a look at. What do you say, Alec?"
"Verra good," replied Alec. "You show the laddies the yard and look over that line, and I'll take the short line east. We'll get back here by noon and this afternoon we can show them some other sets."
To this plan the others agreed with enthusiasm and preparations for an immediate start were begun. "Shall we take rifles?" asked Hal eagerly.
"For what?" demanded Pat. "We be going to visit a deer yard, and 'twould be tempting fate and flying in the face of Providence to let such a bloodthirsty young gintleman in among the poor cratures with a gun in his hands."
Hal joined in the laugh at his expense and then added rather lamely:
"We might run across that silver fox."
"And we might jump over the moon. The one is as likely as the other," retorted Pat.
So the guns were left at the cabin. Pat led the way straight to the ridge on which Spud Ely had missed his first chance to get a buck in the fall, but instead of climbing the ridge worked along the foot of it, skirting a swamp. They followed the edge of this for some distance and then abruptly turned into it. The growth was dense in places, with thickets of young hemlocks which afforded both warmth and shelter in severe weather. Almost at once they came to a deeply trodden path which led them presently to a maze of paths running in all directions.
"Here we are," said Pat.
Sparrer's face was a study. "Where's de yard?" he asked.
"All around here," replied Pat with a comprehensive sweep of his arm, "wherever you see these paths." Then, a sudden light breaking over him, he added, "Did you expect to find a fence around it, son?"
Sparrer grinned, not at all embarrassed by the general laugh and perfectly willing to confess his ignorance. "All de yards ever Oi seen had fences round 'em. Oi thought a fence was what made a yard," he confessed.
"Not a deer yard," replied Pat. "A deer yard is a place where the deer tramp out paths in the snow and spend the winter. It is made where they get both shelter and food. When the first deep snow comes they collect in such a place and start the paths while browsing for food. Then as the snow gets deeper they follow the same paths because it is easier going, and make new paths only when they have to to reach new food supplies. By continually using these paths they keep them open and manage to pick up a living browsing on twigs and pawing down to the ground moss. By the time the heaviest snows come they can't very well get out if they want to, especially when there is a crust like this. You see some of those paths are two to three feet deep. The more plentiful the feed and the smaller the herd the smaller the yard. Before there were any laws to protect deer and moose they used to be slaughtered in the yards by trappers and lumber jacks because it is no trick at all for a man on snow-shoes to run them down. Once get them frightened so that they break out of the yard and they can be run down in no time. There's a deal of poaching goes on now when a yard is discovered near a lumber camp. It's just plain murder and nothing less. I've known a whole family of moose, bull, cow, yearling and calf, to be wiped out in one day by a bloody-minded game-hog. Didn't even waste a shot on the calf, but ran it down and cut its throat. Red Pete, the brute Walt helped to put in the pen the first year he came up here, used to make a business of locating deer yards and keeping lumber camps supplied with fresh meat all winter. The poor critters haven't even a running chance for their lives."
"Oi hope we'll be able to lamp some. Oi wud loike to put me peepers on a real live wild deer before we go home," said Sparrer, his eyes shining with suppressed excitement.
"I guess I can promise you that, my son," replied Pat. "We'll separate here. Sparrer and I will work off to leeward, Hal will keep straight ahead and Walt will swing to windward. If you two start any they will work over to us and give Sparrer a chance to see em. Yell if you start any. I reckon you'll find 'em pretty tame. They haven't been bothered here and they know as well as we do that the law protects 'em now. Watch for fresh sign and follow it up."
They separated as suggested, Hal and Walter moving slowly so as to give Pat and Sparrer time to gain a good position. Walter swung well to the windward side. Of course this meant that his chances of getting a close view of any deer which might be on his side of the yard were comparatively slim. They would wind him and at once move on. He was in effect a driver for the others. But he didn't mind this. Wild deer were no new sight to him, and he was only too anxious to give Sparrer the pleasure which he knew a glimpse of Peaked-toes in the freedom of his native woods would be.
He chose what appeared to be one of the most used paths and followed this as quietly as he could. He soon found that still hunting on snow-shoes and with moccasined feet on bare ground were two very different matters. He was not yet sufficiently adept on the big webs to keep them from clacking as the rim of one shoe passed over the rim of the other. The harder he tried not to the more noise he made, it seemed. Clack, clack, clack. It was most annoying. He stopped to consider. Then on the impulse of a sudden idea he slipped his shoes off and dropped down into the path he had been following. Here he could walk without noise. The droppings of the deer, known as "sign" by all hunters, were numerous, and the brush within reach from the path showed indications of having been browsed on recently, and he found several places where sharp hoofs had pawed away the snow since the last storm.
The path twisted and turned and doubled on itself, showing that it had been made originally by aimless wandering in quest of food. Other paths crossed it, but Walter avoided these, judging that the one he was on was as likely as another to lead him to the quarry. At length after an abrupt turn it led straight into a thicket of hemlocks, young growth. As he approached this there was a sharp sound like the sudden release of compressed air, repeated a second later from a point a trifle to the right. It was the alarm warning of deer. Above the snow just to the right of and beyond the thicket he caught a glimpse of the heads and necks of two does moving rapidly. The effect was most peculiar. It was as if they possessed no bodies until one of them made a high jump for just an instant, bringing the back and rump, with its snowy white flag stiffly erect, into view.
"From the way they go I should think it was the hunting season. I had an idea that they wouldn't be particularly timid, but those two lit out in a regular panic. Act like they'd been hunted until their nerves were all on edge," thought the boy as he hurriedly forced his way through the thicket.
He had no expectation of finding more there, but was eager to see where the two had been lying and then to follow them up as rapidly as possible. So he burst through the screen of hemlocks in rather precipitate fashion, an unusual proceeding for Upton, whose natural caution had been supplemented by a very thorough training in woodcraft during the three summers he had spent at Woodcraft Camp. The instant he was through the barrier he realized the folly of his action. Facing him, not ten feet away, was a big buck with a splendid pair of antlers.
