Not having had any large experience myself in hunting deer with firearms, the use of the bow presented no great contrast. Mr. Young has often said, however, that it gave him more pleasure to shoot at a deer and miss it with an arrow, than to kill all the deer he ever had with a gun. For my part, I did not want to kill anything with a gun. It did not seem fair; so until I took up archery, I did not care to hunt.
Therefore, the analysis of my feelings interested me considerably as we began to have experiences with the bow.
The first deer I shot at was so far off that there was no chance to hit it, but I let drive just to get the sensation. My arrow sailed harmlessly over its back. The next I shot at was within good range, but my arrow only grazed its rump. And that deer did something that I never saw before. It sagged in the middle until its belly nearly touched the ground, then it gathered its seemingly weakened legs beneath it, and galloped off in a series of bucks. We laughed immoderately over its antics; in fact, some of our adventures have been most ludicrous at times.
Once, when two of us shot at an old stag together as it raced far off down the trail, the two arrows dropped twenty yards ahead of it. Instantly the stag came to an abrupt stop, smelled first one arrow at one side of the trail, and the other on the opposite side, deliberated a moment, bolted sidewise and disappeared. What he got in his olfactory investigation must have been confusing. He smelled man; he smelled turkey feathers; and he smelled paint. What sort of animals do you think he imagined the arrows to be?
This reminds me that Ishi always said that a white man smelled like a horse, and in hunting made a noise like one, but apparently he doesn't always have horse sense.
I saw this exemplified upon one occasion. When camped in a beautiful little spot we were disturbed by the arrival of a party of some four men, five horses, and three dogs--all heavily accoutred for the chase. With our quiet Indian methods, we caused little excitement in the land, but they burst in upon us with a fury that warned all game for miles around.