me that I could see
better after a little and lots of other sympathetic nothings. I hope
that none of you may ever have the experience that I met with by the
treatment of that infernal skunk.
After the atmosphere and my eyes had cleared somewhat, we went on and
looked after the balance of the traps on the run. We then started out
to hunt deer, Bill taking one side of the ridge and I the other. I
saw nothing more of Bill until I reached camp long after dark. I
worked along the different spires of the main ridge and through the
heads of the different basins, and only got a glimpse of an old
buck's tail, making over the ridge and beckoning me to come on. He
had come over from the opposite side of the ridge and had got wind of
me before he was fairly in sight. I kept on working the different
points and basins, shaping my course as best I could in the direction
of the camp.
A drizzling rain kept up all day, and deer had not moved very much. I
felt confident that towards evening the deer would come out in the
open to feed in spite of the rain, and pretty well toward night I had
the satisfaction of seeing three deer feeding along the hillside and
coming in my direction.
The wind was in my favor, and as the deer were rather too far to
shoot, I stood quiet, only occasionally moving from one tree to
another as a favorable opportunity occurred. The deer finally worked
up in gun shot, and they proved to be an old doe, a yearling and the
doe's fawn. The yearling was undoubtedly the doe's fawn of the year
before. I was very careful to make a sure shot on the doe. The
yearling and the fawn only took a few jumps when the gun cracked and
the doe went down, and stood looking at the old lady to see what had
happened to her. I gave the yearling the contents of the other
barrel. He made a jump or two and went down, the fawn still standing
and wondering what was taking place, but before I could get a load
into my gun, the little fellow thought it best to move on.
I took the entrails out of the two I had shot, hung them up and took
a lively pace to camp. Bill was already in and had supper waiting.
Bill asked me if I had seen any deer, and when I told him what I had
done, he said that he had seen a deer. I told him that if he had used
a little skunk eye-opener, he probably would have seen some deer.
As it had now been three or four days since we had made the rounds of
the bear traps, we concluded that we would not spend any particu
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