After it had been shot that deer laid down three times — at the Joe Boyce place, at the Bill Rudy place, and on the commons where the Ben Walters place is now. The first time it laid down the warm blood from the wound bored a hole in the snow. Darkness caught us at the old Dixon or Savage place. It was then we remembered the old roan mare was still tied back in the Purcell timber.
What boy is there who would not have been proud of that feat of marksmanship—plugging his first deer through and through as it ran past at almost lightning speed in its mad flight for life? Did I glory in the feat? I did. At first. As a big-game hunter I had, in my own estimation, scored high. Following in the footsteps of my father, a born hunter of big game, I had all but arrived. Plugged my first deer! I was the “toast” of the town! Or at least I could imagine I was. It would still be interesting to know just what would have happened had I brought home the venison. But I cannot now begin to tell you how adversely I was moved when the deer was found dead.
In a flash I saw it all—how I had dropped back into a crook of the old worm fence on the Roger O’Mera farm and waited for the deer, driven out of the Purcell timber by the three other hunters, to come within gunshot; how, as if it had wings, the deer, after being shot, cleared that high rail fence; and how its life-blood spurting two ways stained the fresh white snow where the little animal lit on the opposite side of the rails; how every few miles we saw it jump up from a brief rest and run on again, leaving more red on the white; and how, as we discovered the next morning after leaving the trail at dusk, that a wolf had taken up the chase and had sent the tired deer on and on without more rest back to the big timber from whence it had come and where, perhaps, in the throes of great agony, it sought its mate. And how, still pursued by the wolf, it had cleared in one great leap—its last grand leap—on a down-hill slope, a thirty foot hazel thicket.
Something indefinable, something unforgettable, made an impression on me then. And that something put the “kibosh” on my big-game hunting aspirations. I do not now count it a weakness. Though there were no game laws then, that crime was made all the worse because it was a doe.
My brother Sam, who rode with me that day, later, really brought home the venison, eclipsing all my past glory. But it took two trips all the way to Arkansas in a horse-drawn covered wagon to do it. The first and unsuccessful time he had for hunting companions Alex McCreery, John E. Thomas, and my father. Their bag was a few wild turkeys. The second trip Sam made with Roy Shumaker. This time they killed two deer. Then, for the first time, the sons whose father was a veteran deer-hunter, were to know the taste of venison.
Also, I used to chase wolves and jack rabbits with my horse and the hounds, and enjoy it—until one particular rabbit chase which spoiled the “sport” for me. It was on a Sunday afternoon in the quarter section adjoining town on the northeast—the south half of which is now owned by-Bill Davis. No horses were in this chase. The crowd from town, with several trucks, were stationed on the ridge near the southwest corner. The gray hounds started the rabbit over near the east line, and it ran north down a draw, out of sight. It swung to the left and topped the ridge north of the crowd, with the dogs in close pursuit. The rabbit turned south heading straight for the crowd, and jumped up into Frank Ducker’s truck, right at my feet. One of the men standing in the truck grabbed it while the dogs were on both sides of the truck. The rabbit squealed pitifully. The captor said its sides were thumping like a trip-hammer. Most of the men thought the rabbit had earned its freedom—but not so with some of the “sports.” Expecting to see another chase, they dropped the rabbit on the ground about two rods in front of the dogs, but when the rabbit saw the dogs it began squealing again—and the grayhounds rushed in and nabbed both rabbit and squeal before it realized that it must run again for its life. Every time after this when a rabbit chase was proposed, I could hear that frightened jack rabbit’s pitiful squeal.
But I never experienced any sickening wolf chases.
We had grayhounds and trail hounds under foot when we lived on the Hazeltine farm—but not one that I could call my own. I bought a yellow half-breed grayhound named Tuck from a farm hand on the Zeke Jennings place for one dollar, that proved to be a wonder. The unknown half of him was supposed to be bull dog. With Alex McCreery and his pack of trail hounds, and a half dozen other horseback riders and some grayhounds, a wolf was started out of an isolated clump of brush on the south end of the Len Jones farm, two miles west of Wetmore. I happened to be on the east side of the brush patch with my dog, while the other riders with the pack were on the west side. The wolf came out about a rod in front of my position, and Tuck got an almost even start in the chase. I had a pretty fast horse, but the chase led across a slough, and I lost some ground in heading this wash—but even so, I was on hand soon after the kill, one mile from the start, before Alex and the other riders and the dogs arrived. Alex said, “You and old Tuck was to-hell-and-gone before we caught sight of you.” Tuck had caught the wolf—and drowned it in an eighteen-inch pool of water, along the branch. I found him sitting on his tail at the edge of the pool—looking very pleased. In those days it was a boy’s greatest ambition to own a fast horse, and a fast dog. Now I had both. The only flaw was that I was no longer a boy.
Tuck also caught a deer in the big bottom south of spring creek on the Mary Morris farm four miles west of Wetmore. In this chase I was trailing pretty close, on my horse, when the dog grabbed the deer’s hind leg, causing both to tumble end-over-end. In the midst of this spill, it seemed to me as if deer and yellow dogs were scattered all over the ground. The deer got up first, and ran west toward the John Wolfley timber. My prized hound did not seem to have the heart to follow after it. I think there were moments now when Tuck did not know east from west.
Now, a last word about the Indians—and the Ghost Dance or Messiah Craze as participated in by the Kickapoos. The “craze” was a sort of spiritual delusion starting with the Sioux Indians, the same blood-thirsty red devils who got credit for the ghastly Custer massacre in 1876. This, and other depredations, were still fresh in the minds of the people, and there was widespread alarm among the citizens whenever the craze had taken hold. However, the craze was short-lived. I do not think the Kickapoos repeated after the first year. The dance that time at the Mission was kept going for three weeks.