About this time a shifting breeze carried the human scent to the deer's nostrils and his head came up with a jerk. He blew a bugle blast of warning that could be heard a mile down the valley, and with head and tail erect he bounded away down the hillside as if the Devil was after him.
Just then, it occurred to me that I had a rifle in my right hand and that, for that day at least, it was my business to hunt deer. By this time, however, several trees were between the deer and myself and though I could occasionally see the flash of his white tail in the distance it would have been folly to waste a shot on him. An examination of his tracks showed that he was covering twenty feet at every jump.
After gathering a pocketful of beech nuts for my own consumption, I proceeded on my way eating nuts and musing on the good judgment of the deer in his choice of food.
About an hour later I heard in the distance ahead, a rumbling noise that seemed like the long continued roll of a snare drum or the purr of an eight cylinder gasoline engine. I felt quite certain that no motor car would be found in this roadless wilderness but pressed forward to investigate. Proceeding in the direction from which the sounds came, which were now repeated at intervals, beginning slowly like a locomotive starting; I heard the bumps coming gradually faster and faster until they merged into a continuous rumble lasting for a half minute when the sounds died away as if the steam supply were exhausted.
I now recognized my old friend the ruffed grouse or drummer partridge on his drumming log. With tail feathers spread fanwise, neck feathers ruffed up and the points of wing feathers dragging, he would strut like a turkey gobbler up and down the log until arriving at the particular drumming spot, he stretched his neck, filled his lungs with air, lifted wings and pounded his breast-bump-bump-thump-bup-br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.
The drummer partridge — the male of the species is very fussy and particular about his drumming log. It is carefully selected with reference to its sonorous quality. He always drums on the same log and at exactly the same spot on that log throughout the season. Indeed the same log is likely to be used for drumming purposes several years, but it would be difficult to prove that the same bird did the drumming in successive seasons. One can, however, be quite certain that no two drummers ever occupy the same log in any single season. The fittest would surely whip the weaker one and drive him away.
Several years ago, there was a drumming log about sixty feet back of our "Cedar Lake Camp." Bige and I were wakened early every morning by the old drummer announcing with his tattoo that it was time to get up. He was very regular in his habits and made an excellent alarm clock.
I had by now worked my way up close enough to the log to study the movements of the drummer; indeed I could have knocked him off of that log with a club. He soon discovered my presence, stopped drumming and flew up into a tree about thirty yards away.
We usually hunt partridge with a shot gun and are supposed to shoot them while on the wing. But if one meets a partridge while using a rifle the ethics of the woods requires that one must wait until the bird alights and then shoot him only in the head or neck. Now, the neck of a partridge when the feathers are removed, is about the diameter of a lead pencil and the head is the size of a silver dime. This makes a small target to hit with a rifle at thirty yards, but it has been done, so I fired. The bullet passed close to his left ear causing him to sharply dodge toward the right. The second shot cut a feather from his neck, then he suddenly remembered an engagement he had with a lady bird on the other side of the valley.
I arrived at camp before dark and had a fire started, the potatoes put over to boil and other preparations for supper under way when Bige came staggering into camp with the hind quarters of a deer wrapped in the skin on his shoulders. Bige had put in a strenuous day, had carried his meat from the valley west of Wild Cat Mountain, a distance of about seven miles and he had a good appetite for supper, which I had ready by the time he had put the venison in the cooler.