CHAPTER XX.
Deer Hunt Turned Into a Bear Hunt.
A friend by the name of Dingman invited me to come to his camp on More's Run, a tributary of the Sinnamahoning. This was something like forty years ago, when deer were plentiful and several men in this section made it a business to hunt for the money that there was in it, and Nathan Dingman was one of those men. It was about eight miles from my place to Mr. Dingman's camp.
One morning after we had a fall of snow, I packed my knapsack with as much grub stake as I was able to carry, with my gun and blanket, and started over the hill to Mr. Dingman's camp. After I had crossed the divide, I did not go far before I began to see deer tracks. There was no road or trail down the run, and the run was pretty well filled with timber. I had about all that I could handle without deer tracks, but when I was within about a mile of Mr. Dingman's camp, I came onto the trail of several deer that had only been gone a few minutes. I could not stand it longer, so I hung my pack and blanket up in a tree and took my track back up the stream until I was quite sure that I was well out of range of the deer, and then climbed the ridge until I was near the top of the hill and on advantageous ground.
The direction of the trail of the deer where it crossed the stream led me to think that the deer were going south, or down the ridge but on the contrary they had turned to the right and up the ridge. I had not gone far along the ridge before I began a sharp lookout. I suddenly found the deer lying in a thicket of low laurel. They broke from cover at a breakneck speed. I fired both barrels at them with the best aim that I was able to get, and had the satisfaction of seeing one of the deer, a good sized doe, stumble and partly fall, then hobble on in the direction that the other had gone.
It was nearly sundown and I only followed the trail a short distance when I could plainly see that the deer had a foreleg broken, and she soon left the trail of the others, and went down the hill all alone. Knowing that the wounded deer would soon lay down if not disturbed. I left the trail, went back, got my pack, blanket and went on down the creek to Mr. Dingman's camp. I found Mr. Dingman about to sit down to a supper of roast potatoes, venison and other good things to be found in abundance in the woods in those days.
The next morning we were out at daybreak after the wounded doe. Mr. Dingman said that when the doe was started up that she would come to water, and that she would stop on the creek below where I had left the trail, which led down the hill until in sight of the creek, when it turned to the right, then went back up the hill only a few yards to the right of her trail where she had gone down.
When I saw what the doe had done, I thought to myself, old lady, you are well onto the game, and we will have lots of sport before we get you. I was well aware that she had seen me when I passed by on her trail where she had gone down the hill, and thinking that she would go to the creek below where Mr. Dingman was and told him the game the doe was playing. He said that she would come to water at the point just below the camp, and that he would go down there and watch, while I should follow the track through. I told Mr. Dingman that I was afraid that we were too late, and that the doe had already gone out, that she had made her bed so that she could watch her trail where she went down the hill, and had slipped out after I had gone down the hill on her trail.
Mr. Dingman thought that he could get the runway before she would get through, even if she had gone out when I came through on her trail down the hill. In hopes that the deer had not taken the trail and lit out when I came through the hill, I worked my way cautiously back up the hill, only occasionally going in sight of the trail so as to keep her course, but as I feared, when I was about halfway up the hill, I found her bed, but the doe was gone. I took the trail and followed it up the hill until she struck the trail of the deer that she was with when I first started them, and instead of going down the ridge, she took the back trail of the other deer. I followed it back until near where I had wounded her, when she again broke down the hill and crossed the creek near where I first found their trail, and had gone back onto the same ridge that she had come from.
Now the only thing for me to do was to leave the trail and go after Mr. Dingman again. When I found him and we got back to camp, it was about noon, so we got a warm dinner before continuing the chase. When we got up to where I had left the trail, we held council and made our plans for the next move, and decided that as the old lady was continually doing the unexpected, we would follow her track, one going on each side of the trail a few yards from it.
We had only gone a short distance up the hill when we found the old lady's bed, where she had laid down, so that she could watch back on her trail, where she had come down on the opposite hillside. We did not go far when the trail turned to the left and went up the side of the ridge toward the head of the creek. We continued along the trail one on either side and soon we came to where a large hemlock tree had fallen parallel with the side of the hill. Mr. Dingman was on the upper side and above the fallen tree, while the deer tracks led away below the tree. All of a sudden I heard the report of Mr. Dingman's rifle, so I stood still for a minute, and hearing nothing more I went to see the cause of the shooting. The doe had gone beyond the fallen tree, then turned back and went about midway of the tree, on the upper side and lay down. Mr. Dingman caught a glimpse of the old lady as she went out, but did not catch her.