The Still Hunter

1

by W. DOUGLAS BURDEN

IT WAS THE 12th of November. The day was moderately sunny with a slight breeze out of the south and the temperature about 36 degrees. I started out with a strong sense of excitement and a longing to melt into the forest and become a part of it. That is the feeling a forest lover always has when going alone into the woods. But any realization of it requires a transformation from civilized conditioning that does not come easily. It takes plenty of time to develop a sense of harmony with the wilderness. At first, my steps were awkward and hurried, my eyes didn’t seem to focus well on distant objects, and I felt very much the noisy and jarring intruder I actually was.

For a while, I sat on a log and listened to the wild shrieking of the everlasting blue jay. Then a wandering band of twittering chickadees came flitting all around in a most sociable way. Gradually, the soothing feel of the Adirondack woods and all the familiar sounds and smells began to quiet an excess of enthusiasm so that imperceptibly there was an increased awareness of everything around me, and I felt at last that in spirit, at least, I was beginning to blend with my surroundings.

It was an area I had not visited since childhood — the marshy district northeast of Flatfish pond in the heart of Whitney Park. The country was typical of the Adirondack Mountains — alternating spruce swamps and high ridges, having a dominant northeast-southwest trend. In the ten thousand years since the icecap receded, the sandy soil developed a growth of truly magnificent white pine. Except along the lake shores, these monsters of the past have now been lumbered off, and forest regeneration consists mostly of spruce in the lowland and young beech on the hardwood ridges. Since beech buds are undesirable as deer food, it is natural, with such a large deer population, that this species should be selectively favored in young stands.

A really big buck was known to make his home in this section, so I kept my little .30-.30 Winchester in the crook of my left arm and constantly at the ready. However, hard crunchy snow made it impossible to travel quietly except on the slopes facing the sun where the snow had melted off, so I headed across the swamp in search of a more favorable exposure.

In the course of a large circle, only three does were disturbed, and all three heard me before I saw them, so difficult was it to travel silently. Finally at dusk, after three hours of slow motion through the woods, I found myself climbing the hardwood ridge toward the old telephone line to Craig’s camp. It was then that things began to happen.

First of all, I caught a glimpse of a deer moving ahead of me. It was a buck. He had not seen me and was only slightly suspicious. I followed him with extreme care and found him hiding behind the roots of a big blowdown. Only his head was visible, projecting from behind the upturned roots. With my field glasses I counted the points — four on each side. I waited to see what he would do. Evidently curiosity consumed him, for he soon strode out in full view less than fifty yards away. Since it was rapidly getting dark, I was anxious to have him move out of the way without alerting the whole forest, and this I accomplished by making some low whistling noises until he became sufficiently wary to ease quietly on up into the hardwood.

After he had gone, I circled on down an old lumber road toward the marshy bottom. I did not see a spikehorn that was standing in the road at the other side of a little rolling rise until, with a sharp whistle, he bounded off.

It was obvious, from these two encounters plus the innumerable signs, that I had come into a pocket of game and that deer were now very much on the move. Accordingly, I proceeded with great caution, stopping after every two steps to see what news the forest had to tell.

At this point, the surface of the old lumber road changed to sand. The sand had thawed and was so moist and soft as to make walking without a sound possible. I had just arrived noiselessly at a point in this sandy bottomland where four old lumber roads meet when I heard a twig snap in the spruce thicket toward Little Flatfish. Immediately I moved beyond a white boulder that stood in the middle of the road and crouched behind it. A moment later, an eight-point buck emerged from the spruce thicket and came right down the road toward me. I let him advance to within fifteen feet of me, when I made a loud “psst.” He halted abruptly, a fine animal in superb condition, sleek and fat, his dark winter coat unmarred by any signs of fighting. Obviously, he could not make me out, still as I was, and although he reacted with a violent quiver all through his body each time I repeated the sound, I made it at least a half-dozen times at varying intervals before he finally decided to retire. This he did by forking up the very branch I had come down.

Here again there is a little rolling rise, and as he proudly walked from view with no sign of haste, I stood up from behind my rock to watch him. As I did so I saw, about a hundred yards away, in the dwindling light, another, larger buck advancing in my direction. As the two bucks neared each other, the new arrival curled his neck down in a threatening manner as if he were about to charge, whereupon the eight-pointer left the road with a quick bound and disappeared into the heavy spruce thicket.

The big fellow continued to advance toward me. Again I sank down behind the rock and let him come up until he too was but a few feet away. Once again I made a loud ‟psst,” and he too stopped with the same result ing noticeable quiver that flashed through his body. He was a magnificent tenpointer with a very black muzzle and head. He kept reaching his nose out trying to sniff me, as if daring himself to advance further. It must have been a full three minutes — and only after repeated ‟psst” noises on my part — before he slowly turned and, with that stiff-legged and rather embarrassed and caught-out look, quartered off up the same road the first buck had come down. His departure was no faster than his arrival.

Darkness was now well down and I headed home.

2

NOVEMBER 13th. The big buck had been seen by George Cary in the esker country (a glacial formation of low sand hills). George said he was really big, a twelve-pointer surely. So Sonny Whitney with his usual generosity suggested that I have ago at him.

The day was still and mild with scarcely a sign of a breeze. I started early, and after I had gone for about half a mile down the old lumber road that leads into the heart of this country, it became increasingly and unpleasantly obvious that I was a target for all eyes. The lumber road was open and exposed, and no matter how carefully I advanced, I felt that I stood out like a sore thumb. Instead of being in the forest looking out, I seemed to be outside trying to look in. Therefore, to correct this situation, I picked the first good-looking deer runway and plunged into the woods to my left, moving at approximately right angles to my course until a good travel runway led off in the right direction.

The runway was overgrown with young saplings from two to three feet high, all cropped off at the top. These shoots were so stiff and snapped back so violently against my knee-high sealskin boots that in order to move quietly it was necessary to lean over and hold them off with my hand. As a result, progress for a while was very slow.

I had proceeded tediously in this way for about an eighth of a mile when the runway merged into another long-disused lumber road, which was covered with snow. A little further on, another branch road came in at a sharp angle from the right. The character of the forest had now changed. On all sides it consisted of dense young spruce from twenty to thirty feet high. Through this tangle it would have been impossible to move quietly, so there was no choice but to stay in the road.

For a very long time I stood and listened, hoping to get some clue as to whether it would be advisable to take the right fork or the left. Finally, patience was rewarded. About one hundred yards away, directly ahead in the thick spruce, a twig was broken by a large animal. Then another twig snapped a little further to the right, and still another. I knew now that I was close to a large herd of deer and that in all probability the big buck was with them. Luck was with me. The game had been located. It now remained to contrive a successful stalk. But my position was difficult. A lot of problems had to be overcome, and for the moment I could not determine how best to deal with them.

From the sounds I had heard, it was my impression that the deer were quartering away from me. This meant that if I was ever to catch sight of them, I would have to move ahead myself.

I attempted an advance down the noisy snowcovered road. A lot of grass was sticking up through the snow and I tried bending it over with my foot to see if this wouldn’t muffle the inevitable crunch of each step. It helped, but not too much. When you are trying so hard to move silently and yet cannot fail to make a noise, it is exasperating.

I had proceeded in this way a few steps at a time to a point just short of where the roads forked, when suddenly two grouse that I had neither seen nor heard thundered off in the direction of the deer, their wings clicking against the brush as they dove through the heavy spruce cover. I damned those grouse, thinking to myself “That does it — what chance have I now!”

In face of this adversity, my only hope was to wait it out. Fortunately, the temperature was so balmy it was possible to stand absolutely still in perfect comfort.

In such a situation, time is hard to judge, but my guess is that at least twenty minutes elapsed before the deer started to move again. When they did move, I stayed right where I was for quite a while, not wishing to run the risk of alerting them again too quickly. However, when the slight sounds of their movement indicated they were getting too far ahead, I was again forced to advance myself. I moved now by a special technique — a couple of quick tiptoe steps and then a long pause, followed by another couple of quick steps and another long pause. As I turned a corner into the right-hand fork, there, to my dismay, directly ahead was a red squirrel sitting on a stump, eating nuts. He had been eating so quietly I had not heard him. At sight of me, he promptly let loose a most vociferous scolding — thereby telling the forest a second time that, an intruder had moved in. This was too much.

Straight ahead on the right-hand edge of the road was a very large white birch growing right up next to the thick spruce. Beyond this tree and to the left of it an open, heavily lumbered sand hill could partly be seen. If I stepped out around the birch, I would come into full view of any animal on that hillside; and although all the sounds of game had come from the heavy spruce thicket on my left, it was possible that one or more deer well ahead of the others might already have reached the open ground. So I leaned over as far as I could without actually taking a step and tried to look around the left-hand side of the tree. For a long time I examined the hillside carefully. There were many blowdowns with the great jagged circle of roots in the air; there were quite a few small young spruce; there was the usual low, brown brush and patches of snow; but for the most part the hillside lay bare. Not a thing was to be seen.

Finally, after the most intense scrutiny, I looked back at the ground and picked out two good spots for my next two steps. Then I took them as if walking on eggs, and looked up again.

And lo and behold, there HE was — about eighty yards away, well up on the hill, and staring straight at me, head on. Unmistakably, it was the big buck. The fine rack of horns offered convincing evidence he was a twelve-pointer. Somehow, his whole expression and the extreme concentration of his gaze telegraphed the information that I had not a moment to lose. No sooner had I seen him than I started to raise my rifle, but my rifle was not yet halfway to my shoulder when he dug out of there like an explosion. In two jumps he was out of sight.

As soon as the big buck crashed away, the forest started to break loose on all sides. How many deer went out of that spruce thicket I don’t know. There must have been seven or eight of them at least. In the midst of the noise, I ran ahead to where the thicket ended. I could now see well up to the left, and there was a spikehorn, still standing and evidently frightfully curious to know what the fuss was all about. Then I climbed up to where the big buck had stood, sat on a log, and looked back to appraise the wonderful view he had had of me when I stepped out from behind that birch tree. While I was sitting there contemplating my failure, the two grouse that had flushed from the spruce thicket emerged from the deer cover and walked along a log.

After a while, I started on the trail of the buck, wondering how far he had gone. His big jumps could be seen plainly, even on the hard ground. At the end of another quarter of a mile, where the high sand esker terminates and breaks down into a little valley, some particularly loud pecking on a tree attracted my attention, and then I saw one of the great pilcated woodpeckers, the famous “cock of the woods.” Promptly on sight of me he started screeching and, with brilliant red crest erect, flew off hollering to the whole forest. At the same time, several blue jays started screaming, and in the midst of this din came the sudden heavy crashings of the big buck as he bolted away. Evidently he had stopped to see if he was being followed. It seemed that morning as if the whole forest were conspiring against me. Further pursuit was now hopeless, so I headed back for camp.

3

NOVEMBER 14th was the last day. It was warm, overcast, and absolutely still. Not the slightest rustle stirred the dry leaves on the beech trees. All traces of snow had disappeared and it was quiet underfoot. With no wind to carry scent, one direction was as good as another. However, the first thing to be learned was whether the deer were in the swamps or up on high ground. So I left the main lumber road and headed down an old skidway toward a big black-spruce marsh. Some grass had grown up along the skidway, and since it was still wet at this early hour, one could move in almost complete silence.

Nevertheless, it took about ten minutes to cover the first hundred yards. Fifty yards further on, near the bottom of the skidway, and on either side, was a steep bank about eight feet high. From behind the bank on the right came a very slight sound. it was made by a moving animal. I crouched down and waited. It was a long wait. Finally, a small doe stepped out from behind the bank and looked straight at me without seeing me. Slowly she worked her way across the skidway till she disappeared behind the bank to the left.

After making certain she was not followed by a buck, I continued to move forward very slowly. Almost immediately a very small invisible twig in the grass broke under my weight. The sound seemed so slight it could not carry twenty yards. So I did not pause. At the next step, it happened again. Immediately the doe bounded from behind the bank and raced into the black spruce. She was so alarmed she did not stop to satisfy her curiosity. At three hundred yards she reappeared, still leaping away. How was it that so slight a sound had caused such fear? It was as if wolves were about.

Investigation proved the swamp to be empty, so I sought higher land. For several hours nothing was seen.

Toward midmorning I was beginning to tire of caution. A small travel runway led up a slope. Near the top of the slope a spruce blowdown crossed the runway. It was too high to swing a leg over without scraping the bark. However, since it was not yet possible to see down the far side of the ridge, I forced myself to be careful. Setting the rifle to one side and using both hands to hoist each leg in turn clear of the rough bark, it was possible to cross the obstacle without a sound. Then I stood stock-still and listened. My care was rewarded. Almost immediately a slight snap cut through the stillness.

It came from behind the big circle of roots that rose up directly in front of me. A tree had fallen away from where I was standing, and the woven mesh of roots had peeled all the soil from the underlying rock. On this smooth surface one could take three or four quick steps to the edge of the barrier and look around it. This I did, moving to the right edge. There was nothing in sight — and for good reason, because a moment later a fine-looking, very black coated buck stepped around the left edge. Had I moved to the left rather than to the right, I would have met him face to face within three feet. Even so, he was not more than twelve feet away when he came to a stop and stared for a full minute at my frozen figure. He was a six-pointer and, judging from his breathing, he was traveling hard in search of a doe.

I could not shoot him, and very soon he trudged on in a businesslike manner, totally unaware he had been so close to man.

Now for a long time the woods seemed empty of game. It was the middle of a warm November day and the deer were probably lying up. So, by way of diversion, I decided to crossover into another valley where I had never been before. The intervening ridge turned out to be quite a marvelous spot — fine, open hardwood; sheer, big cliffs of smooth rock carved by the ice; and here and there small clumps of spruce providing ideal hiding spots for deer. I remembered how very cautious the great Indian hunter, Archie Miller, used to be when advancing toward an evergreen thicket in the midst of hardwood; so, with greatest care, I now worked slowly upward. No game was seen on the way, but I was aware again and again of a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes it turned out to be a bird hopping to another branch, but more often it was the flitting of little white wood moths that seemed to fill the forest on this warm day. Flights of chickadees, some juncos, many woodpeckers, and of course the ever-entertaining blue jay passed by as I worked my slow way up to the top.

A well-used runway descended into the valley beyond. This new valley was of a different character — dark and somber, and the floor of it was covered with spruce. A feeling of strangeness — almost of hostility — was in the air. The valley was filled with silence. It put me on edge, and the noise I made moving in was a jarring note in the midday peace and stillness. And where the remaining unlumbered hardwood giants still stood, magnificent in their slow decay, with windblown, fragmented tops wide-spaced over the carpeted floor, they spoke of time — not in weeks and years, but in centuries. For those same giants, now so withered and rough and noble with age, and still fighting out the remaining years of their existence, had once looked down on stalking wolf and mountain lion, on moose and painted Iroquois.

Part way across the bottom of the valley, I rested by a black and sluggish stream that sifted slowly by between soft banks of deep moss. My thoughts became increasingly disturbed and apprehensive. I remembered that only a year before, there had been a certain long, wet night alone in the hardwood with no supper, huddling a smoldering flame. I began to wonder if I would get lost. And then there was another thought, which said, “There is something good about being alone at night with nothing in a great forest. A little circle of warm firelight surrounded by a barrier of black, cold wilderness accents deeply your own puny size and vulnerability. The silence moves in close and there comes a deep, relaxing sense of kinship with an infinitude of remote ancestors who huddled thus around fires generation after generation through the lengthy dawn of man.”

Gradually the mood changed. Tension vanished, and I sat in suspended animation — daydreaming in the perfect loneliness while, drop by drop, time slid gently by like the slow and even current of the stream.

4

THE decision to move does not come abruptly. You think about it vaguely, wondering if you are starting too early or too late, and a lot of the time you don’t think about it at all. Then suddenly you find yourself on your feet as though some outer force had taken the matter in hand. I looked through the barrel of my rifle, checked the ammunition, and tightened my belt. The time for action had arrived.

My skin boots sank deep into the soft, silent moss. The swamp spruce stood so close and thick that, even on the runway, twigs were broken by shoulders and hips too big to worm through.

This was not good, and repeatedly I stood still for a long time, hoping for some news from the forest. Finally it came, ever so faintly — just one single, very slight blat from the steep ridge that rose on the far side of the swamp. Nevertheless, it was unmistakable: the signal of a buck calling to a doe.

I moved slowly and carefully off at right angles up the marsh, trying all the time to maintain an exact sense of the location of that single blat. The forest was stillness itself. The closer I got to the critical area, the slower my steps became. It was very exciting, creeping up. Then, with unexpected suddenness, there they were. I came upon them so dose it was hard to believe we had not heard each other. They were just below me behind some fallen trees. The doe showed herself first. She was very calm, but the buck seemed agitated. He was nervous, on his toes, ready to flee. But he was only a six-pointer. They seemed a happy family. It was fun to watch them but difficult, to move without precipilating an alarm. Since one never knows what may be ahead, it is always best, whenever possible, to leave game undisturbed; so I retired as cautiously as I had come.

Once again for a long time the woods seemed to be dead — not a movement, not a sound. As I stood, wondering what next to do, the thought of the big buck filled my mind. The esker country where he lived was now not far away. If I traveled hard, I could get there in time for one final hunt. The very thought made my legs fly. By four o’clock I had arrived and was working very carefully up a rather open ridge. It was magnificent deer country. The time of day was ideal and there was plenty of fresh sign. I advanced very slowly, holding every piece of brush to one side and studying each step so as to reduce sound to an absolute minimum, yet not forgetting to look long and carefully between steps at all the terrain.

Suddenly I saw a small doe about sixty yards away. Though still lying down and facing me, she had not seen me. This presented a difficult problem. How could the doe be made to move without alerting the forest? I advanced one step, thereby fully revealing my head. Instantly she got to her feet and stared at me. I did not move again and finally, after a few nervous flicks of the tail, she daintily moved off. When she disappeared, I resumed my advance at right angles to the course she had taken.

Since sound does not travel well over a ridge, I now proceeded much more rapidly up the east side to the summit. The west face was quite open. Not a thing was to be seen. Beyond was another ridge, thickly covered with spruce and hemlock. In the bottom was an old log road overgrown with grass. The light had become dim, and a deep stillness now lay on the land. Just as it is difficult to see well from an open lake into the deep woods, and easy to see from the woods any movement on an open lake, so does this matter of comparative light often determine who sees whom first — the hunter or the hunted. Nevertheless, it was a magnificent place for deer.

I crept down the open hill to a big runway. Starting along it, I found myself too high to see well into the black timber across the way. So I retraced my steps until a series of jackstraw logs offered silent access to the old lumber road below. Now was my final chance. Two or three careful steps were followed by the inevitable searching pause. Another two steps, and another two, and still another. If only I could advance like a shadow. It was as if my whole being were in my eyes. Presently there was one slight movement — the nervous flick of a deer’s tail deep in the evergreens. It was a doe. In one slithering dark brown glide she slid over a log and was gone. Had she seen me?

For a Very long time I wailed motionless in a motionless world. And yet there was a certain movement in it. It was the slow movement of darkness sinking into the forest. You could feel it descending.

Then out of that gathering gloom it suddenly happened. An enormous buck head literally popped into viewy as if by magic, about eighty yards away. He was in an opening beyond the hemlocks, and the waning light shone full on his gleaming whitelipped antlers. So intently did he look straight at me that I felt sure he must see me. I dared not move. There was so much intervening brush, it was impossible to count the points. Only his horns shining through the fading light were clearly visible. Then they disappeared.

Very slowly, I sunk onto my right knee. My left elbow fell on the other knee. Automatically, the sights came into line. Now my heart stood still, for I began to feel I had seen the big buck. But I was not yet sure. Was he really as big as he looked? Would he work out of that heavy cover before the light was hopelessly gone? For just a fraction of a second the horns showed again. Seen through the deep darkness of the hemlocks they were startlingly large and bright. Then suddenly I knew that it was he. He was in such a rough spot, such a heavy tangle of brush and fallen trees, that there was little chance of a better view. It was a sporting shot, and I decided to take it if ever those horns appeared again. Now the decision was made, my heart was pounding with excitement. In full readiness, I aimed where I thought his horns would show. It was a long, long wait. Had he followed the doe and slipped away? Then like a flash the moment arrived. Up came his head, looking right at me. From the way it was turned, one could guess where the shoulder was. I drew a bead, let it drop low and to the left, and fired. Death struck instantly. He never knew what hit him. Success had come in a matter of seconds — not from a long and careful stalk, not because he had been outwitted, not because he had made a mistake, but purely from the luck of chance encounter in the very last few moments of fading light.

When I came up to him, there was the strong smell of deer and blood. The very symbol of pride and grace and beauty had collapsed into a crumpled and bleeding form. To witness this sudden degeneration is always the fate of the successful hunter. It is a desperate thing to love wild animals and yet. to kill them.

But if the deer hunter needs any solace for his act, he has but to recall the well-founded claim of the biologists that where there are no wolves and no mountain lions, man should harvest 25 to 35 per cent of the deer crop each year in order to prevent starvation on the winter range. That is at least one answer to the oft-repeated question: How can you bear to shoot such a beautiful creature?