r
deer along the side of a ridge, expecting every moment to catch them
feeding, when I heard a noise behind me and looking back, I saw this
little buck coming full tilt right towards me. The deer saw me about
as soon as I did him and wheeled to run back when I fired and he went
down. I set my gun against a tree and started to cut the deer's
throat. I took the deer by the ear and straightened his back. About
this time that dead deer began to get pretty lively and was trying to
get on his feet and as I could not reach my gun, threw myself onto
him, thinking to hold him down.

Well I held him about as long as lightning would stay on a limb. When
I got through gazing at the hole in the brush where I last saw him, I
found that I was sadly in need of a new pair of trousers and vest, as
well as a jack knife. I searched a long time in hopes of finding the
knife, but did not. I had another knife at camp and after about a two
hour's job with needle and thread, I managed to get the trousers so
that they were passable in a pinch and all the time that I was
repairing the trousers, Bill sat there laughing at me. Now this was
the first time that I had supposed dead deer come to life and give me
the go-by, though it was not the last time.

I had given him what is called a fine shot, that is I had shot him
just across the back and the ball had struck one of the joints or
knuckles of the backbone as it proved. I had the satisfaction of
killing the same deer two or three days later or at least we thought
it was the same one. We had three or four days of mild weather and as
we had not been the rounds of the traps for several days, only
tending those that came handy while hunting deer, we thought we would
reverse the plan and go over all the traps and pay but little
attention to deer hunting unless we struck a hot trail. We thought we
would take in those traps first in the direction where the bear traps
were and go to the traps farthest from camp and bring in some of the
traps. We did not expect to get any more bear as it was too late in
the season for bear to travel until they had their winter's sleep.

We were in luck this time for as we had usually tended the bear
traps, the one that we went to first would have been the last trap to
come to. When we came in sight of where the trap was set we saw that
there had been a bear dance going on. As the snow was several inches
deep, we saw at a glance which way the bear had gone and we only ha