FIRST PART
THE man unacquainted with the joys of the chase would be surprised if told, as he sauntered through some city market, that there was far more pleasure in hunting those plump little brown birds hanging in bunches around the stalls than in pursuing that imposing beast whose antlers reach the pavement. Yet it would be true.
Deer hunting under its usual conditions leaves something, often much, to be desired. If a dozen men are placed on isolated “stands” the solitary hours of waiting are long and weary. And should you happen to be a tyro the knowing ones hide you away in some unlikely spot, where hardly by any possibility will the chance come to you of seeing and, in the shivers of “buck ague,” missing the game. “Still hunting,” another mode, is well named. As a rule it may be depended upon to afford no end of stillness, and little else. And to be rowed up by a hired guide on a lake to within a few feet of a poor, helpless buck, swimming for dear life, and blow out his brains is almost as bad as shooting pheasants in an English preserve or poultry in a barnyard. Under all these methods deer hunting lacks what is the conspicuous charm of partridge (quail) shooting—vivid and continuous excitement.
For, from the moment when you enter, on a sparkling autumn morning, a brown stubble field, fresh of limb and eager for the fray, till you limp back at sunset, wolfish for dinner, and broken with a delicious fatigue, you have not had one dull moment. You may not have been firing steadily; the birds may even have been a little scarce; but every instant of the day, as you have watched your dogs sweeping to and fro, you have been buoyed up by an ever lively hope that the next moment your heart will be gladdened by seeing them halt—frozen as it were—in their tracks. Ah, there they are! You hurry up, you and your friend, breathing short. Up bursts the brown covey, with startling buzz! You bang away—innocuously it may be, but no matter, you have made a prodigious noise, at any rate—that's some comfort. And see now! The little brown balls have dropped into the weeds, one here, one there, along the ditch, and a little bunch, all together, in that clump of briars on the hillside. Better luck next time!
Still, after all, “Bob White,” for all his bustle, is but a small chap. It would take hundreds, nay, bushels of him, to outweigh one “antlered monarch.” Toothsome though he be (on toast) he tips the scales at a beggarly half pound. On the other hand, it often takes you a week or so to get one chance at a deer.
Now, it so happens that it was once my fortune to take part in a deer hunt, where the excitement was as continuous as that in a stubble field, and, naturally, far more intense. This was years ago, and in Scott County, Mississippi, two days' journey on horseback from our plantation.
Every November, as a child, I had eagerly hailed the return from the camp hunt of the big four-mule wagon, laden with tents, cooking utensils and provisions, and upon which were piled high the noble bucks and sleek does. At last, when I had reached the age of sixteen, the longed-for permission was granted me, and one crisp, frosty morning my father and I mounted our horses and set out for Scott County, followed by Beverly and the great covered wagon. Both Beverly and Ned, his whitish-gray saddle mule, had their peculiarities, as will appear later.
As we journeyed on we were joined at successive cross roads by others of our hunting party, and when we reached the ground we numbered, with those already arrived by other routes, about fifteen. The tents were soon pitched and a roaring fire of logs six feet long was sending up its merry sparks into the starry vault above us. Would supper never be ready?