Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper / Autobiography, experiences and observations of Eldred Nathaniel Woodcock during his fifty years of hunting and trapping.

by E. N. Woodcock

The first snow that fell to make good tracking was a damp one, and hung on the underbrush so much that it was impossible to see but a few yards unless in very open timber. Here I wish to relate an incident that nearly caused my hair to turn white in a very short time. I am not given very much to superstitions or alarmed at unnatural causes, but in this case I will confess that I felt like showing the white feather.

I was working my way very cautiously along the side of a ridge and down near the base of the hill in low timber, as that is the most natural place to find deer in a storm of this kind. I had just stepped out of the thicket into the edge of a strip of open timber where I could see for several rods along the side of the hill. I had barely stepped into the open when I caught sight of some object jumping from a knoll to a log where it was partly concealed behind some trees, so that I was unable to make out what it was. I was sure that I had never seen anything like it before, either in the woods or out in civilization. I could get a glimpse of the thing as it would pass between the trees, then it would disappear behind brush or a large tree for a moment, then I would get a glimpse of it as it would move.

Sometimes it would appear white and then a fire red. I could see that it was coming in my direction. As I always wore steel gray, or what was commonly known as sheep gray clothing, which is nearly the same color of most large timber, I stepped to a large hemlock tree, leaned close against the tree, set my gun down close to my side and stood waiting to see whether the thing was natural or otherwise.

It was not long before I could see that I had been frightened without any real cause, for it was a hunter who had dressed in fantastic array to put a spell on or charm the deer. He had on a long snow white overshirt and had tied a fire red cloth over his hat and a black sash was tied about his waist. I stood perfectly quiet against the tree until the man was within a few feet of me, I could no longer keep from laughing, and I burst out with laughter. The man jerked his gun from his shoulder as he turned in the direction in which I was standing and gazed at me for a moment and then said, "You frightened me." I replied that I guessed that he was no more frightened than I was when I first caught sight of him.

Well the man explained that he always dressed in that manner when the underbrush was loaded with snow, as the deer would stand and watch him with curiosity until he was within gun shot. When in New Mexico many years after I had tied a red handkerchief to a bush to attract the curiosity of the antelope, and it reminded me of the hunter that I had seen working the curiosity dodge on the deer.

That night when I got into camp, Bill had not got in but came soon after, and he had hardly got the shack door open when he began roaring with laughter. I inquired what it was that pleased him so. "Pleased me so?" "I guess I was pleased, and had you seen the dog-on nondescript that I did, you would have laughed your boots up." I asked if he had seen the man dressed in red, white and black. Bill asked, "Did you see it too?" I told him of the hunter that I had met and talked with. Bill said that he had not been close enough to speak to it, and he was dog-on if he knew whether it was safe to get too close to the dog-on thing or not.

We had good tracking snow from this time on during the remainder of the hunting season. We now each hunted by himself, working as usual over the ground that would bring us in the locality of our traps, which we would look after and relieve any fur bearers that we chanced to get.

We met with one mishap during the season. Well along toward December I went to one of the bear traps that we had not been to in a number of days. The trap was a blacksmith made one with high jaws. I found the trap a short distance from where it had been set, tangled in an old tree top with a bear's foot in it. The bear had been caught just above the foot. As the trap jaws closed tight together the trap clog had got fast solid in the brush soon after the bear had been caught. The animal twisted and pulled until he had unjointed the foot, worn and twisted off the skin and cords of the leg and was gone. He had escaped some time during the night before I came to the trap.

I reset the trap and then took the trail of the bear, which had taken a northeasterly course. I followed the trail until nearly night, when I became satisfied that he was making for a large windfall on a stream known as the South Fork, some fifteen miles away. I gave up the trail and returned to camp, which I reached about 10 o'clock at night. Bill was still keeping supper warm for me well knowing that something was out of the ordinary and wondering what it was.

The next morning we held a council and concluded to look after a few traps near camp and put in a day of partial rest and prepare to take the bear's trail early the next morning. As planned the next morning, we had our blankets and a grub stake strapped to our backs and were off for the trail some time before daylight. Striking the bear's trail where I had left it about 9 o'clock in the forenoon, we followed the trail good and hard all day through wind jams and laurel patches, coming to the big windfall just before dark, very tired.