CHAPTER XIX.
stopped off at Spokane Falls, on my way home, for a few days' deer hunting, and though that region be not exactly in the Cascades, it is so near that a few points in relation to the sport there may be admissible in connection with the foregoing narrative. I had advised my good friend, Dr. C. S. Penfield, of my coming, and he had kindly planned for me a hunting trip. On the morning after my arrival his brother-in-law, Mr. T. E. Jefferson, took me up behind a pair of good roadsters and drove to Johnston's ranch, eighteen miles from the falls, and near the foot of Mount Carleton, where we hoped to find plenty of deer. We hunted there two days, and though we found signs reasonably plentiful and saw three or four deer we were unable to kill any. Mr. Jefferson burned some powder after a buck and a doe the first morning after our arrival, but it was his first experience in deer hunting, so it is not at all strange that the game should have escaped. Mr. Jefferson was compelled to return home at that time on account of a business engagement, but Mr. Johnston, with characteristic Western hospitality and kindness, said I must not leave without a shot, and so hooked up his team and drove me twenty-five miles farther into the mountains, to a place where he said we would surely find plenty of game. On the way in we picked up old Billy Cowgill, a famous deer hunter in this region, and took him along as guide. We stopped at Brooks' stage ranch, on the Colville road to rest the team, and the proprietor gave us an amusing account of some experiments he had been making in shooting buckshot from a muzzle-loading shotgun. He had made some little bags of buckskin, just large enough to hold twelve No. 2 buckshot, and after filling them had sewed up the ends. He shot a few of them at a tree sixty yards away, but they failed to spread and all went into one hole. Then he tried leaving the front end of the bag open, and still they acted as a solid ball; so he had to abandon the scheme, and loaded the charge loose, as of old. He concluded, however, not to fire this last load at the target, and hung the gun up in its usual place. A few days later he heard the dog barking in the woods a short distance from the house, and supposed it had treed a porcupine. Mr. Brooks' brother, who was visiting at the time, took the gun and went out to kill the game, whatever it might be. On reaching the place, he found a ruffed grouse sitting in a tree, at which he fired. The ranchman said he heard the report, and his brother soon came back, carrying a badly-mutilated bird; he threw it into the kitchen, and put the gun away; then he sat down, looked thoughtful, and kept silent for a long time. Finally he blurted out:
