The Louisiana cotton-boll. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], Attakapas, La.) 1872-1883, 1879-10-30
Deer Hunting in the AdirOndacks.

a correspondent OF the Springfield
Republican thus describes typical deer
hunt in the Adirondacks: "At seven
the hunters are off. Three or four dogs
are started on as many trails by tho
hunters, who often take long tramps
through the thick woods for that purpose.
Generally, however, it takes only few
minutes to find a track, and the dog
starts, baying as he goes at irregular in
tervals on the track made, perhaps, the
night before. He wanders about un-
certainly for a time, as the deer has fed,
and then goes off straight and quickly
out of hearing behind some wooded hill.
The hunter then knows that the deer
has left off feeding, that the dog,,has not
reused him as yet, but that he is prob
ably lying at rest afterhis nights travel
So the hunter uses his ears instead Of his
eyes; he listens for the lost sounds The
dir is full Of murmurs; now he thinks he
hears the dog, but it is only some great
fly buzzing, rods away. An hour is gong;
the ear is tired of its straining, and 81
scans the bay. It may be the deer las
come to water; it often does before the
dog is heard. lie looksalong the border
Of the lake, where the leaning cedars
make a dark zone; many an Impractical
eye has missed the game in that deep
shadow. He sees some floating object
far down the lake, at which he strains
his eyes; il is loon which laughs at him
and dives and floats away. The fly pads
rise from the water with the breeze and
cheat him into another long debate be-
tween the sense and the reason. Another
hour is gone, and eye rs well as ear is
tired. Blueberries or raspberries are
thick about him, and he picks them and
gives an occasional glance about the
lake. A crash comes across the lake
from the hill to startlo the strained
senses; it is some great tree falling in the
woods that jars the earth, shocks the air,
and makes the waters lap the pebbles on
the beach. In the hush that follows the
faintcst baying of the hound is heard,
far off but quite distinct. Echo makes
plaything Of the sound, throwing it from
hill to hill, giving it to you first from one
point, and then from another, cheating
you all the time You spend two whole
hours listening to that sound, and then
it dies down again, and your guide con-
cludes the deer has gone to water in
some distant lake. And then you push
OFF your boat for astart homeward, when
all at once on the hillside, close to the
place where the dog first took to the
trail, he breaks out again, loud and ur-
gent, howling, yeIping, bowling in one
continuous stream Of noise He has the
deer ahead of him this time sure enough.
NOW everythingis excitement; there
is no fatigue in eyes or ears. Round the
hin they go, deer and dog, up the lake
shore, toward the head,
"' viii he go in therePii we ask.
"No' replied guide, we never watch
that place. Back they come, right to-
ward our watching place
"'Will he come IMP we ask.
"Not yet is the reply.
"The chase turns and goes rapidly up
q brook bed toward High Pond; another
turn and back they come. This time
through swamp. We can feel the
perplexity of the dog rs the marshy soil
defeats his scent, and breaks his baying
into infreqcnt and impatient howls.
The swamp is passed, and as the chase
leads off in straight line parallel with
shore, our guide fairly shouts, That
deer is ours; there he goes straight for
Great Forked and right into BIS hands.
We wait minutes that seem hours.
Why doesn't he shoot? the deer is in
the bay long before this;' and BIS rife
cracks two miles away; and the hunt is
up. Five hours Of steady watching gave
us deer. 1t is the story of representive |
hunt, which might have been varied in
q score of ways and ended in defeat, at
last"