Your guide finds "sign," and reports that it is not fresh enough to follow; so pursues his course till, looking back on the devious miles of weary wandering, you can hardly credit it that you have been but eight-and-forty hours on the trail. But your camp is pitched once more, and dawn has again roused you from your ferny bed. Listen! the branches are crackling and rustling close by. You and your guide race for the spot, rifle in hand, too eager almost to duly remember woodland rules of caution. Crouching and crawling as you get closer to the sounds, peering through the fern, you see--what? Six, eight, ten, twelve, seventeen great beasts; one with enormous head, two others with smaller but still imposing antlers; the rest the mothers of the herd. Unconscious of danger, they browse round; both rifles speak together, and the monarch and one of the smaller stags lie prostrate. You stay hidden; the deer group together in a confused crowd, too foolish and excited to think of flight. Again your comrade fires, and another falls, and yet another, till, in disgust at the needless slaughter, you step from your shelter, and the survivors rush madly away, crashing through the wood as if a herd of cattle were in flight.
I have known men, not usually cruel or excitable, get so maddened in a scene like this, that seven great elk lay dead together before they thought of stopping firing; and yet they knew that from the wilderness they stood in it was impossible to carry off the meat of even one!
Many hunters prefer elk-meat to any deer; others think the fawn of the white-tailed deer the best eating in the world.
One night last summer we camped out on Beaver Creek, nine miles south of the Yaquina, along the beach. We had been trout-fishing all day from a canoe, and were glad to stretch out before the fire limbs that had been somewhat cramped from the need of balancing the rocking craft with every cast of the fly. Before the fire stood roasting a row of trout, held in place over the hot embers by a split willow wand. We heard voices approaching through the wood, and presently a half-breed hunter and two friends of ours came in sight. They had been out two days after elk, but failed to find. On the way back they came across a doe and well-grown fawn; the latter they had killed, and brought it in. It was speedily skinned and cut up, and a loin, shoulder, and leg were skewered on sticks and roasting in the blaze. No bad addition to our fish supper, deer-meat and trout; the coffee was the only contribution of civilization to the meal, and a merry evening, extended far into the night, followed, as the logs were piled on, and the ruddy glow and showers of sparks lighted up the wild but comfortable scene, dancing in the lights and shadows of the overhanging trees.