CHAPTER XXI.
HOW I HUNTED AND WE PAID THE MORTGAGE.
The mortgage which had hung so long over us, like a dark cloud obscuring our temporal horizon and chilling our hopes, was at last removed, May first, 1841. After the mortgage was on the place it hardly seemed to me as if it were ours. It was becoming more and more valuable all the time, and I thought it was dangerous to let the mortgage run, as the old lady might foreclose at any time and make us trouble and expense. The mortgage was like a cancer eating up our substance, gnawing day and night as it had for years. I made up my mind it must be paid. I knew it caused mother much trouble and although, father said very little about it, I knew that he would be over-joyed to have it settled up. I told him I thought I had better hunt during one fall and winter and that I thought I could, in that way, help him raise money to pay the mortgage. I was about twenty years old at that time and thought I had a very good rifle and knew how to use it.
I went to my friend William Beal, and told him I had concluded to hunt through the winter. I asked him if he didn't want to join with me and we would hunt together, at least some of the time. He said he would. I told him I thought we could make more money by hunting than we could in any other way as deer were worth, on an average, from two and a half to five dollars a piece at Detroit, and we could take them in very handily on the cars.
We found the deer very numerous in the town of Taylor, next south of the town of Dearborn. Sometimes we went and stayed a week. We stopped nights with an old gentleman whose name was Hodge. He always appeared very glad to see us and gave us a hearty welcome. As he and his old lady (at that time) lived alone, no doubt they were glad of our company. They must have felt lonesome and they knew they would be well rewarded with venison and money for the trouble we made them. Mrs. Hodge took as much pains for us and used us as well as mother could have done. We carried our provisions there on our backs, flour, potatoes, pork and whatever we needed. We carried pork for the reason we relished it better a part of the time than we did venison. Mrs. Hodge prepared our meals at any time we wanted them. Sometimes we ate our breakfast before daylight and were a mile or two on the runway of the deer when in became light. The woods and oak openings abounded in deer and we had very good luck as a general thing. We made it a rule to stay and not go home until we had killed a load, which was not less than six. Then we went and got father's oxen and sled to go after and bring them home. After we brought them home we took the hind quarters, the hide, and sometimes whole deer, to Detroit and sold them. In this way we got considerable money. In fact my pocket-book began to pod out a little. Of course, we saved enough, of the fore-quarters for our family use and for our old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hodge. But we couldn't afford to let them have the saddles; we wanted them to sell as we were going in for making money.
It would be impossible for me to delineate the occurrences incident to my hunting days. The story told in full would fill a volume, but if it were not in connection with my father's family and how we got along, when I was at home with him, I should not mention it at all. As it is, I will try to describe one day's hunt after deer, which might be called a successful day, and another hunt after bears, which was not successful and one or two deer fights. My comrade and I started from father's very early one morning. A nice tracking snow, three or four inches deep, had fallen during the fore part of the night. In the morning it was warm and pleasant. When we came near the head of the windfall, we found the tracks where three large bucks had been along. It is not common that those large deer go together. They are generally scattering, one or two, or with other deer, but in this case, it seemed, three old bucks had agreed to go together. We followed them about half a mile to the west until they crossed what is now the old telegraph road in the town of Taylor, south of where Mr. Putnam lives. We thought the deer went into a large thicket, that stands there yet. We made up our minds they were lying in that thicket. William said he would go around and stand on the ridge, beyond the thicket, in a good place to see them when they were driven out. I told him I wanted him to be sure and down with one, so that I could see how they looked. I stood where he left me about half an hour, to give him plenty of time to get around, then I started along slow on the tracks.
I followed them about ten or fifteen rods when I found, that instead of going into the thicket where we supposed, they had turned into a little thicket, near a fence and clearing that had been made at an early day. I little thought they were lying there, but sure enough, in a minute, they jumped up and away they went, one after the other, toward the big thicket. They seemed desirous of making all the sport of me they could; as they were running across a little opening they showed me their white flags. I shot very quickly at the middle one. I told him by the report of my rifle, which rang out clear on the morning air, that I wanted him to stop, and he struck his flag.
They were running from me a little diagonally, and were about twenty-five rods off, when my bullet struck his side, it being partly toward me. They ran right into the big thicket where we first supposed they lay. I loaded my rifle and went where they were running when I shot. I saw that the blood flew in small particles on the snow and I was sure he was ours. He ran for one breath, got out of my sight and fell dead, having made his last tracks, being shot through the lights.
I hurried across to my friend Beal and told him I had shot a noble buck. That he was running away from me and that I would not allow him to do so. The other two had gone out of the thicket, over the ridge, so far east that he didn't see them at all. We hurried back to where the one we had got lay, took out his entrails, climbed up a sapling, bent down the top and fastened the gambrels of the old buck to it; then sprinkled powder on his hair, so as to keep the ravens from picking him, let go the sapling and it straightened up with him so that he was out of the way of the dogs and wolves. Then we started as quickly as possible after the other two. They went a south-west direction about eighty rods, then turned south-east and went straight for the Indian hill, went over it and took their course nearly east. They had ceased to run and were walking. There was another large thicket east of us, which was about half a mile through and we thought, possibly, they might stop in that before they went through into the woods. It was agreed that I should go around, that time, to the lower end of the thicket, and stand. He was to try and drive them through if they were there. I went south to, what we called, the south branch of the Reed creek. It was frozen over and there were three or four inches of snow on the ice; I went on it without making any noise. I ran down a little over half a mile very quickly; when I was below the thicket I turned north, went through the brush that grew on the bank of the creek, up to a little ridge where it was open and stopped by the side of a tree, which was about twenty or thirty rods from where I turned north.
I didn't stand there but a very short time before I heard and saw some partridges fly away, and I knew they had been disturbed by something in the thicket. Then I saw the two deer coming just as straight toward me as they could run, one right after the other. When they got within about eight or ten rods of me I had my rifle ready. They saw me and, as they went to jump side-wise, my rifle spoke to another one and the voice of it forbade him going any farther. That was the second word my rifle had spoken that morning.