slowly move it so as to shoot to his left. When he had
the gun worked around so it pointed in the direction in which he
wanted it, he began to raise it slowly to his shoulder. I thought to
myself, that means venison for breakfast. I thought right, for when
Bill touched the trigger and his gun spoke, I saw two yearling deer
jump into sight and my gun came to my shoulder from habit, but there
was no need to shoot.

The second jump that the deer made one of them fell dead, the other
one ran a few rods, stopped and looked back to see what had become of
his mate. Bill's gun came to his shoulder like a flash, but I
hollowed, "Don't shoot." Bill dropped his gun and said, I came
dog-on-nigh making a fool of myself. We got down from our perches and
dragged the deer (a yearling buck) out away from the lick, removed
the entrails and Bill made a knapsack of the carcass and started for
camp.

The sun could still be seen shining on the highest peaks of the
hills. Bill said, "That fun was over with too quick; I had one of the
most comfortable seats I ever had. I had no time to enjoy it, when
you called my attention to those little bucks and spoiled all my
comfort." We got to camp before dark and stripped the skin from the
deer, spread it out, cut all the meat from the bones, layed it on the
skin, sprinkled some salt over it, then wrapped the meat up in the
skin, saving out a few choice pieces to frizzle over the coals and
eat with our lunch before bunking in for the night.

We had seen some parties, while picking berries during the day. They
told us that there was a man by the name of Sage living down on the
river near Emporium, who had a large clearing on the hill only about
a mile from where we were, or about two miles from our camp. He told
us in which direction we would find the field, and said that we would
find Mr. Sage there, as he was up there cutting oats. As the grub
stake for the horses was getting rather low, and as we were not yet
ready to go home, Bill said that if I would stay and jerk the venison
(for here we cannot keep venison by hanging it up in a tree, or on a
pole, as you can on the Pacific Coast or in the Rockies), he would go
and see Mr. Sage.

In the morning I began preparation to jerk the venison, while Bill
went in search of grub for the horses. There was no road, but there
was but very little down timber in the woods in those days, only
occasionally a wind jam, which you had to work your way around. Bi