The Cherry Pond Camp
In still hunting one must sneak through the woods, making no sound and as little motion as possible. Preferably one should also hunt "up wind," but this is not always possible. The deer has been provided with a pair of very large ears capable of collecting the sound made by a breaking twig many rods away; and his sense of smell is so keen as to telegraph to his brain the human scent and warn him of the approach of his hereditary enemy long before he is within range of vision. It is also the habit of the deer, when lying down, to take such a position that he can keep his eye on his own back track, while he has in effect "his ear to the ground."
At this time the leaves had just begun to fall, and there had been no rain for many days, so when one walked through the woods the leaves rustled, and dried twigs and branches snapped, making the forest "noisy."
There were many deer living in the vicinity of Cherry Pond. We had seen tracks and other signs of their presence, but on the few occasions when we saw a deer it was usually only the flash of his white tail as he jumped from behind a clump of bushes and disappeared behind a rock or other screen. Twice we took snap shots, and in each instance the bullet, we found, was imbedded in a tree trunk that the deer had succeeded in placing between the gun and himself at the first running jump. I had also sat many hours on logs watching runways while Bige tramped around a hill or over a mountain to drive a deer past my watch station. On one occasion when I heard a deer coming and was all ready to shoot, he evidently suspected danger, crossed over to another parallel runway, and passed without coming into view.
We had traveled many miles in our hunt, had been over Panther Mountain and Eagle Mountain, had been up Beaver River Valley, and had visited Pickwocket Pond and Muskrat City. We had hunted carefully and patiently, but had each night gone back to camp without meat, and the situation was becoming serious.
Cherry Pond, so named because of the quantities of wild cherries that grow near it, was one of our favorite camping places, and we had spent more or less time there every year for the past fifteen years, both during the fishing and hunting seasons. Many a fine trout has found his ultimate destiny in our frying pan over the Cherry Pond camp fire.
Bige and I had built an open log camp there: one of the type called a "lean-to." It is so named because it leans to or against nothing. In other words, the camp has three sides, a sloping roof, an overhanging or projecting hood, and a fireplace built of stone in front. This type of camp can be made very comfortable except in cold winter weather, and in it one can be sure of plenty of fresh air. Some of the enclosed log cabins we have built are not so well ventilated and are liable to be close and stuffy.