The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-12-20
NEWBURY's OLD DRAGFo0T.
Lame Buck Who Has Been Dodging the
Hunters Bullets for Years.

Writing in the Boston Transcript,
"The Nomad' gives the following de-
scription of "Old Drsgfoot," buck
deer that inhabts the region of New
bury and defies all attempts of the
hunters to get him:
Old Dragfoot has come unseathed
through another hunting season. Old
Dragfoot is a big old buck who lives
on the southern slope OF Mount Pula
ski, a precipitous eminence which over
hangs the little town of .Newhury, VT,
on the Connecticut river. This name
Pulaski" by the way, has nothing to
do with the Polish patriot, but is a cor
ruption of the spelling of an Indian
name; it should be spelled, no doubt,
Puliasky, or something like that. Old
Dragfoot has been there for years.
Out of the hunting season he is re-
markedly cheeky, and is often seen in
the orchards around the village, eating
the bark of young apple trees, to which
he is quite partial. He is lame, al
ways dragging one foot behind him.
and leaving a strange track which has
grown strangely familiar to every win
ter wandering boy and girl in the town.
Evidently, in his callow youth, before
he had learned wisdom, Dragfoot was
shot in the foot by some hunter. Never
again for Dragfootl 1t is the ambition
of every man and boy in Newbury to
get him, but nobody ever does. Every
year for week all the hunters in the
town pursue him, knowing that he is
handicapped by his lameness, but never
do they catch sight of him. And Pull
ask is but a little mountain after all.
Every yard of it must be beaten over
by the hunters How does the lame old
deer, dragging his useless foot over the
snow, escape them all? He knows.
Often the hunters know from the
freshness of the trail that the old deer
is but few rods away, but it is inn
possible to sight him.
Old Dragfoot, in spite Of his crippling,
is redoubtable buck among bucks. He
heads a flock of dozen does, which
proves his proves. This year three or
four OF his does were shot He may
have been inconsolable, but he did not
offer himself as vicarious sacrifice
The second day after the hunting week
was over this year, old Dragfoot was
down in an orchard in the heart of the
village eating nice young apple-tree
bark. Again and again since the sea
son was over he has been eenbut no
human being ever saw him during that
week. The years go by, and Old Drag
foot remains an impregnable institu-
tion OF Newbury. He weighs, il is
plain to see, over three hundred pounds,
but the yenison in him must be getting
rather tough with years No matter
about that--it would be the biggest
feather a Newbury hunter could ever
have in his cap to bring home the car
cass of Old Dragfoot some December
day.
| Where does deer 20, in such re.
stricted area az a single mountain in
an otherwise quite we'll settled conn
try, to escape the Gordon of hunters
! drawn about him? The Nomad would
surmse that at the dangerous time,
hearing guns and smelling predatory
1 humanity, the wary deer abandoned his
mountain home altogether and sought
some innocent glade far from his usu-
al haunts, but there are his tracks in
the snow on the mountain, proving
that he does not leave it, What a mas
Ner of the art of concealmentl One can
/ imagine him standing perdu in the
midst of some low thicket, into which
he has leaped from a neighboring ledge,
| leaving no trail, and standing as mo
| tionless and silent as the ledge itself
while the baffled hunters pass him by,
but few feet away And all his life
| long the old deer must drag that use
less foot after him over the flowery
carpet OF summer and the telltale
SHOWS of winter! What a triumph of
natural instinct over human artifce is
the life of this deer Of Newbury Does
not your sympathy 60 out to him, even
as he gnaws the tender bark Of the
young apple trees in the village or
chards?