went onto the
stream and branches and built deadfalls for mink and coon.

Nearly every day we saw deer, but the weather was still too warm to
keep venison any length of time, so we did not carry our guns with
us. When Frank would see a deer he would make grave threats that he
would carry his gun the next day. We were about two miles from the
stage road. The stage made only one trip a week, so there was no way
of disposing of a deer as long as the weather was so warm. It took
but little persuasion to convince Frank that it would be poor policy
to kill deer as long as we could make use of but a small part of a
single deer.

After we had gotten out a good line of deadfalls for marten, mink and
coon, and as it was now about the first of November and time to bait
up the deadfalls, and set out what steel traps we had for fox, I told
Frank that we would carry our guns with us and try to kill a deer for
bait and camp use. Frank could hardly sleep that night; he was so
delighted to think that the time had come to quit the monkey
business, as he called it, and begin business.

We climbed the ridge where we knew there were some deer, following
down the ridge, one on each side, along the brow of the hill. We put
in the entire day without getting a shot at a deer. That night it
snowed about an inch, so that in the wooded timber, one could see the
trail of the deer in the snow; but in hemlock timber there was not
enough snow on the ground, so a track could be followed. We had
killed a squirrel or two, and had a little prepared bait, so we
concluded to bait a few traps until we struck a deer trail.

We did not succeed in finding the tracks of any deer until well along
in the afternoon. It so happened that I got a shot at a deer that was
nearly hidden from sight behind a large tree. I shot the deer
through, just forward of the hips. We followed it only a short
distance when we found the bed of the deer, and there was blood in
it, so it was plain to be seen in what manner the deer was wounded.
All still-hunters (excuse the word still-hunt; the word stalking does
not sound good to a backwoodsman) of deer know that when a deer is
shot well back through the small intestines, that if conditions will
allow, the right thing to do is to leave the trail for a time and the
deer will lie down. If left alone for an hour or two the hunter will
have but little trouble in getting his deer. So in this case, as we
were not far from camp and it wa