Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter

CHAPTER XIII. Small Country Neighbors 391

SMALL COUNTRY NEIGHBORS 391

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⁂ Seven of these Chapters have been recently written; the others have been revised and added to since they originally appeared in the publications of the Boone and Crockett Club and in Mr. Caspar Whitney’s “Deer Family.”

ILLUSTRATIONS

THEODORE ROOSEVELT Frontispiece Photogravure from a photograph.

FACING PAGE GOFF AND THE PACK 5

TURK AND A BOBCAT IN TOP OF A PINYON 12

BOBCAT IN PINYON 16

STARTING FOR A HUNT 33

THE FIRST COUGAR KILLED 37

AFTER THE FIGHT 44

COUGAR IN A TREE 50

BARKING TREED 63

STARTING FOR CAMP 68

AT DINNER 74

THE PACK STRIKES THE FRESH BEAR TRAIL 77

DEATH OF THE BIG BEAR 83

STEWART AND THE BOBCAT 86

THE PACK BAYING THE BEAR 88

A DOILY BEAR 91

THE BIG BEAR 94

STARTING TOWARD THE WOLF GROUNDS 101

GREYHOUNDS RESTING AFTER A RUN 104

AT THE TAIL OF THE CHUCK WAGON 108

THE BIG D COW PONY 112

ABERNETHY AND COYOTE 116

ABERNETHY RETURNS FROM THE HUNT 125

BONY MOORE AND THE COYOTE 129

ON THE LITTLE MISSOURI 138

CAMPING ON THE ANTELOPE GROUNDS 156

RANCH WAGON RETURNING FROM HUNT 182

ELKHORN RANCH 216

THE RANCH HOUSE 238

THE RANCH VERANDA 248

THE PACK TRAIN 264

TROPHIES OF A SUCCESSFUL HUNT 277

TROPHIES IN THE WHITE HOUSE DINING-ROOM 284

ANTELOPE IN THE STREETS OF GARDINER 294

BLACKTAIL DEER ON PARADE GROUND 299

ELK IN SNOW 304

OOM JOHN 309

BEARS AND TOURISTS 311

GRIZZLY BEAR AND COOK 314

THE BEAR AND THE CHAMBERMAID 316

THE NORTH ROOM AT SAGAMORE HILL 324

RENOWN 341

HIS FIRST BUCK 343

ALGONQUIN AND SKIP 344

PETER RABBIT 346

THE GUINEA PIGS 348

FAMILY FRIENDS 350

JOSIAH 354

BLEISTEIN JUMPING 356

THE BEAR HUNTERS 366

LISTENING FOR THE PACK 376

AUDREY TAKES THE BARS 396

THE STONE WALL 402

ROSWELL BEHAVES LIKE A GENTLEMAN 414

ROSWELL FIGHTS FOR HIS HEAD 418

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⁂ The cuts for Chapter I are from photographs taken by Philip B. Stewart; those in Chapter II, from photographs taken by Dr. Alexander Lambert and Philip B. Stewart; those in Chapter III, from photographs taken by Dr. Lambert and Sloan Simpson; those in Chapter IX were obtained through Major Pitcher; most of the others are from photographs taken by me or by members of my family.

OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER

CHAPTER I. With the Cougar Hounds

WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS

In January, 1901, I started on a five weeks’ cougar hunt from Meeker in Northwest Colorado. My companions were Mr. Philip B. Stewart and Dr. Gerald Webb, of Colorado Springs; Stewart was the captain of the victorious Yale nine of ’86. We reached Meeker on January 11th, after a forty mile drive from the railroad, through the bitter winter weather; it was eighteen degrees below zero when we started. At Meeker we met John B. Goff, the hunter, and left town the next morning on horseback for his ranch, our hunting beginning that same afternoon, when after a brisk run our dogs treed a bobcat. After a fortnight Stewart and Webb returned, Goff and I staying out three weeks longer. We did not have to camp out, thanks to the warm-hearted hospitality of the proprietor and manager of the Keystone Ranch, and of the Mathes Brothers and Judge Foreman, both of whose ranches I also visited. The five weeks were spent hunting north of the White River, most of the time in the neighborhood of Coyote Basin and Colorow Mountain. In midwinter, hunting on horseback in the Rockies is apt to be cold work, but we were too warmly clad to mind the weather. We wore heavy flannels, jackets lined with sheepskin, caps which drew down entirely over our ears, and on our feet heavy ordinary socks, german socks, and overshoes. Galloping through the brush and among the spikes of the dead cedars, meant that now and then one got snagged; I found tough overalls better than trousers; and most of the time I did not need the jacket, wearing my old buckskin shirt, which is to my mind a particularly useful and comfortable garment.

It is a high, dry country, where the winters are usually very cold, but the snow not under ordinary circumstances very deep. It is wild and broken in character, the hills and low mountains rising in sheer slopes, broken by cliffs and riven by deeply cut and gloomy gorges and ravines. The sage-brush grows everywhere upon the flats and hillsides. Large open groves of pinyon and cedar are scattered over the peaks, ridges, and table-lands. Tall spruces cluster in the cold ravines. Cottonwoods grow along the stream courses, and there are occasional patches of scrub-oak and quaking asp. The entire country is taken up with cattle ranges wherever it is possible to get a sufficient water-supply, natural or artificial. Some thirty miles to the east and north the mountains rise higher, the evergreen forest becomes continuous, the snow lies deep all through the winter, and such Northern animals as the wolverene, lucivee, and snowshoe rabbit are found. This high country is the summer home of the Colorado elk, now woefully diminished in numbers, and of the Colorado blacktail deer, which are still very plentiful, but which, unless better protected, will follow the elk in the next few decades. I am happy to say that there are now signs to show that the State is waking up to the need of protecting both elk and deer; the few remaining mountain sheep in Colorado are so successfully protected that they are said to be increasing in numbers. In winter both elk and deer come down to the lower country, through a part of which I made my hunting trip. We did not come across any elk, but I have never, even in the old days, seen blacktail more abundant than they were in this region. The bucks had not lost their antlers, and were generally, but not always, found in small troops by themselves; the does, yearlings, and fawns—now almost yearlings themselves—went in bands. They seemed tame, and we often passed close to them before they took alarm. Of course at that season it was against the law to kill them; and even had this not been so none of our party would have dreamed of molesting them.

Flocks of Alaskan long-spurs and of rosy finches flitted around the ranch buildings; but at that season there was not very much small bird life.

The midwinter mountain landscape was very beautiful, whether under the brilliant blue sky of the day, or the starlight or glorious moonlight of the night, or when under the dying sun the snowy peaks, and the light clouds above, kindled into flame, and sank again to gold and amber and sombre purple. After the snow-storms the trees, almost hidden beneath the light, feathery masses, gave a new and strange look to the mountains, as if they were giant masses of frosted silver. Even the storms had a beauty of their own. The keen, cold air, the wonderful scenery, and the interest and excitement of the sport, made our veins thrill and beat with buoyant life.

In cougar hunting the success of the hunter depends absolutely upon his hounds. As hounds that are not perfectly trained are worse than useless, this means that success depends absolutely upon the man who trains and hunts the hounds. Goff was one of the best hunters with whom I have ever been out, and he had trained his pack to a point of perfection for its special work which I have never known another such pack to reach. With the exception of one new hound, which he had just purchased, and of a puppy, which was being trained, not one of the pack would look at a deer even when they were all as keen as mustard, were not on a trail, and when the deer got up but fifty yards or so from them. By the end of the hunt both the new hound and the puppy were entirely trustworthy; of course, Goff can only keep up his pack by continually including new or young dogs with the veterans. As cougar are only plentiful where deer are infinitely more plentiful, the first requisite for a good cougar hound is that it shall leave its natural prey, the deer, entirely alone. Goff’s pack ran only bear, cougar, and bobcat. Under no circumstances were they ever permitted to follow elk, deer, antelope or, of course, rabbit. Nor were they allowed to follow a wolf unless it was wounded; for in such a rough country they would at once run out of sight and hearing, and moreover if they did overtake the wolf they would be so scattered as to come up singly and probably be overcome one after another. Being bold dogs they were always especially eager after wolf and coyote, and when they came across the trail of either, though they would not follow it, they would usually challenge loudly. If the circumstances were such that they could overtake the wolf in a body, it could make no effective fight against them, no matter how large and powerful. On the one or two occasions when this had occurred, the pack had throttled “Isegrim” without getting a scratch.

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