Stag Pants Galahads

Sports Afield, November 1930

This is Sigurd's first deer hunting story. The cast includes several friends from the Ely schools. I don't know Hilliard's first name, but he was an industrial arts teacher. Sigurd's close friend Julius Santo, dean of Ely Junior College, makes another of his appearances in Sigurd's stories. Glenn Powers, principal of the local schools, was another good friend. In an undated journal entry that Sigurd wrote around the same time as this article, Sigurd mentioned Powers:

I often think of the long arguments Glenn and I used to have, how we bewailed our fate, condemned to teaching....Our Snowbank trip was interesting in that it brought light our views once more....1. That our pleasures must be creative, our work must be our pleasure we crave this type of activity that drains our natures of their vitality 2. Other occupations have one goal, an office, executive ability, organization. If that is goal no profession has anything for us....

Powers found his outlet in photography. Sigurd was still searching....

"Hey you old woods rat, wait a minute."

I turned around. It was the dean, hurrying up the street toward me. By the light in his eye, I knew something out of the ordinary was up.

"It won't be long now," was his greeting.

"What won't?" I asked stupidly.

"Come to," he said, "and take a look at this." Then with an air as momentous as though he was unveiling the only original draft of the Locarno treaty itself, he showed me a bit of yellow cardboard. Actoss the top, printed in bold black letters were three words and a figure, BIG GAME LICENSE 1928. I stared but said nothing.

"Bette get some shells and limber up that trigger finger of yours," was his parting remark. "Another two weeks and we'll be on our way."

From that moment, my blood pressure was anything but normal. Until then, the coming of deer season had seemed rather indefinite and still too far away to worry about, but here it was, almost upon us and a million things to get done.

Everyday affairs became suddenly of secondary importance and I wandered around, my brain a whirl of pack sacks, tents, rifles and grub lists. Mo one consolation during those trying days, was that I was not alone in my travail. As time went on, others developed the symptoms and I revelled in such intimate companionship and understanding as seldome befalls one in these sophisticated times.

One evening Glenn Powers called me over to see his new thirty-thirty. As I drew beads on all the light bulbs in the house, he told me confidentially that he had traded in his old one and only forty dollars to boot. Didn't I think it was a buy? Of course I did, though I couldn't help secretly agreeing with his otherwise understanding wife who couldn't see for the life of her why the old one wouldn't have done just as well.

Hilliard was in the midsge of a new sleeping bag. I came on him one day, knee deep in duck feathers and wool batt. He was working feverishly and I knew that for him it was a race against time. To my questions he only grunted and sewed all the faster. The strain was beginning to tell.

That last week was tense with suppressed excitement. The main topic of conversation was snow. Old-timers talked of other seasons and made sage predictions about the weather and things in general. The gaily decorated windows of the hardware stores with their show of rifles, deer heads, and neatly stacked mounds of ammunition, became the meeting places for men on the streets. Here they gathered any hour of the day or night to discuss in muffled tones the lates scrap of gossip. The game wardens had found several carcasses already in the brush just south of town. Someone had seen a buck and a doe on the Winton road not over a mile away. As the time drew close, men who hitherto had worn the calm placid look of substantial citizens, now had the preoccupied expressions of those about to embark upon great and desperate adventure.

Those last few days were interminable, then all of a sudden the hour was upon us. Final hurried preparations and checking over of supplies, all but tearful goodbyes from our wives. "There had been so many accidents already. We would be careful, wouldn't we? Good luck and have a good time," fell upon heedless ears and we were off.

As we roared out of town, the tension snapped and we were our old selves again. If we had cared to confess it however, there had been a lot of satisfaction in the fuss we had caused at that and in the incidental adulation that followed us out. My own little Junior had followed me around admiringly for a whole week, weighing my every word. But today when I donned my wool stag pants, checkered shirt and suspenders, his joy was unconcealed. To him I was as completely Sir Galahad as though I had worn a suit of shining armor. I had promised him faithfully a very rash promise, made I'll admit in a mood of braggadocia, to bring home the biggest buck in the woods, with horns a yard wide and full fashioned. For that matter, we were heroes to every youngster in town if not to our wives. It was satisfying to know that once again we could bask in the role of the primitive provider, faring forth to deeds of "derring do."

We were bound for the Stony River country, the choices bit of hunting ground in northern Minnesota. Since the days of the lumberjacks, the word "Stony" has been one of more than ordinary meaning wherever the subject of deer hunting has come up. Just mention that name to any nimrod in the northern half of the state and see his eyes light up. Ten chances to one, he will start the inevitable "I remember" and then you'll be in for an all night session.

Thirty miles of driving over the crookedest road in creation brought us through the heart of the "Superior National Forest" to the banks of the Stony River. Here we left our car in the clearing of what used to be old camp six in the logging days, and struck due east into the brush. After following the north bank for several miles, we pitched camp just as it was getting dark in a heavy growth of mixed timber near the water.

After an hour or two of the usual milling around that accompanies the setting up of camp, we settled down to enjoy ourselves and make ready with the necessary word barrage for the morning's attack.

The fire of pine knots was burning merrily, throwing a ghostly light on the tall white trunks of birch and aspen. The dean looked at his watch. "Ten hours and twenty minutes to go," he announced. "Within half a day, we'll hear the crack of rifles."

We gave our guns a final polishing, while we planned the morning's hunt. Glenn would go up the narrows, the dean west along the river, Hilliard and I would work north toward Dunnigan Lake. One thing worried us more than anything else and that was the absence of snow. Deer hunting with the leaves dry and noisy and no possible chance of tracking was a condition to be dreaded. Yet here we were confronted by the very thing we had hoped and prayed wouldn't happen.

"I remember the season of '21," spoke Glenn. "The woods were so confoundedly noisy then that you couldn't get within a mile of anything. Didn't have a ghost of a chance."

"You're certainly a cheerful cuss," I answered. "Seems to me we had good shooting that year, although I will admit we had to work for what we got."

"The only way tomorrow," concluded Hilliard after an hour of reminiscing, "is to pick a spot and sit down. There's no earthly use in moving around."

"Guess you're right," agreed the dean. "Let 'em come to you. There's no use chasing 'em tomorrow."

I got up and walked out of the circle of firelight to take a look at the sky. It was cloudy and the wind was in the south. A slight chance but doubtful. Nine o'clock found us in our sleeping bags. The last long night was under way.

Long before daylight, I heard a whisper, "pile out you swamp angels, it's almost time." It was the dean, as I might have guessed. He never could sleep worth a damn the night before. I looked at my watch. It was only four-thirty and wouldn't be light for another two hours.

"Start the fire," I mumbled, "and when it's nice and warm, call me." A disgusted snort was my only answer.

In a moment a candle sputtered into a sickly yellow flame. By this time, Glenn too was awake. "What's the idea," he roared. "This ain't duck season. Poor devil, he's gone completely off—." A flying boot hushed him up.

It wasn't long before a fire was blazing in front of the tent, throwing a warm and pleasant glow against the side of my sleeping bag. Never in all my life had I been so thoroughly comfortable. The fringe of trees outside the circle of firelight looked dark and mysterious. Somewhere back in the gloom, a branch snapped. It was a dark and forbidding world and I snuggled farther down in my bag. The smell of boiling coffee was tempting and so was the bacon.

"Come on you birds," growled the dean in desperation, "what sort of a tea party do you think this is?"

His sarcasm had the desired effect. "Here goes nothing," came from Hilliard, as he burst from his bag. I followed suit and so did Glenn. For the next few minutes, the tent was a nightmare of woolen underwear, stag pants and suspenders. Coffee over and cigarettes and still it wasn't daylight. We busied ourselves stowing away chocolate bars, sandwiches, shells and advice. The dean was pulling on his cap and without as much as a parting word, he lifted the flap and was gone. We were on our way.

There was not a breath of air and the woods so quiet it hurt to move. My first step in the dry crackly leaves all but unnerved me. After going a short diestance, I stopped to listen. The others were gradually crunching off into the brush, Hilliard and Glenn to my right, the dean to my left. A partridge whirred up in front of me and lit in the top of a birch where he proceeded to make his breakfast on the frozen brown buds. From the timber in back came the rolling tattoo of a downy woodpecker drilling away at a dead pine stub.

I had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile, when I heard a different sound, the rapid pattering of running hoofs on a hard dry trail. I stopped again to listen, there was no mistake. The dean had jumped a couple and they were coming my way. Croching, I ran swiftly forward toward a trail on the next ridge. The brush was so thick I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of me. When I reached the ridge, I climbed a stump and waited. The pattering sound had stopped. Had they gone or were they watching me? I stood it a moment longer and then stepped down. There was a snort and a crash and the deer bust from their cover in a thicket of alder and bounded away down the trail. As luck would have it, I didn't see a flash. Two seconds sooner and I'd have had shooting. I stood and listened until I could no longer hear them moving and then walked down the trail to where they had stood. It was as I had thought, a buck and a doe.

Picking out a likely looking spot, I sat down to wait. Perhaps the dean would scare up another. In a way I was glad I had missed my first chance. It would have been a shame to have made my kill so early. An hour passed without a sound but the nervous rustling of dry leaves.

Just as I rose to go, bang-bang-bang sounded far to my right toward the narrows. That must be Glenn. A little later came another shot, the "Coup de Grace." First blood of the season.

I wandered around the edge of a swamp grown thickly with black spruce and alder, and paused on top of a high ridge. Suddenly, the brush cracked sharply down below me. All tense, I waited. Crash again, something was surely coming. Moving to a better vantage point, I slipped the safety off and got set. The whole valley was in plain view before me. Then out of the corner of my eye, I caught a telltale flash of red, brilliant eye-splitting red. I lowered my gun in disgust, not that I wouldn't have liked to shoot, but all that suspense for nothing.

I sat down carefully so as not to attract attention. On he came, someone else's Sir Galahad, running like a fool. Not once did he look my way and for that I was glad. In a short time he disappeared and I vaguely regreeted the fact that he had proceeded in the direction my deer had taken.

Cutting across his trail, I started off at right angles to his course through the swamp. Five minutes later, I was startled by a series of rapid shots. My friend of the brilliant top-knot had connected. After that, firing broke out in all directions. First came a volley from Deep Lake toward the east, then from old camp six, and last from the Dunnigan Lake country ahead of me. Everyone seemed to be getting shooting but me. It was disquieting to say the least, particularly when reflecting that I had hunted deer for almost twenty years, had guided scores of parties myself, and was generally considered an old hand at the game. Above all, I had my reputation with Junior to uphold. He could not be disappointed—the biggest buck in the woods—horns a yard wide and full fashioned.

I tightened up my belt and settled down to hunt in earnest. No more time for scenery or reflection. The leaves were so confoundedly noisy and though I took advantage of every moss covered rock and log, my progress must have been broadcasted for a mile. The racket I made was terrible. Today it was a case of pure luck.

Noon found me on a bare pine-covered ridge far to the northward. Here was a wonderful chance to watch. The sun came out and with it the shooting increased. The deer were moving around again. While I ate my lunch, I watched the country below me. Open rolling ridges extended in three directions and I could see for hundreds of yards. After all, the hunting wasn't everything and there were other days coming.

It was pleasant sitting there in the sun even though I knew that I ought to be moving around. A squirrel scrambled up the jackpine to my right and heaped upon my poor defenseless head all the vile squirrelish blasphemy he could think of. Then as if satisfied that anything as big and stupid as I was could certainly be of no importance, he scurried down the way he had come and continued his belated harvesting. A little later, a pair of soft grey whiskey jacks dropped in from nowhere and gave me the once over.

I don't know how long I sat there, but it was probably much longer than I should have. Leaving the hilltop almost regretfully, I turned south and headed toward camp. It was now the middle of the afternoon and by four-thirty it would be too dark to shoot. I would have to hurry.

Half a mile further on, I came to a beaver pond. This was good country, lots of swamp grass, willow and other feed around the edges. A beaver dam at the lower end of the pond served as a bridge. I made it across safely and strolled up a well marked trail on the other side. Everywhere were signs, places they had pawed the ground for roots and rubbing trees the bucks had used to polish the velvet off their horns. Here I would have to watch myself. As quietly as I could, I worked my way up the slope.

When I reached the top, I stopped to look the country over. Suddenly there was a racket in the swamp below me. A ridge a hundred yards away would command the trail. There was only one thing to do, make a spurt for it. I made it in ten flat, of that I'm certain. Throwing myself down in true skirmish fashion, I waited. Something moved through the brush to my left. That was all, not a flash did I see, but I heard my deer crashing through the thin ice of the muskeg below. If I had only been two seconds sooner; another of the possibilities that pepper every hunting season.

A little later, while working through a brushy ravine, I stopped to take a look at my compass. While slipping off my glove, there was a crash ahead of me. For a frantic instant, I struggled to free my hand, while the white flag of a deer bounded gaily through the timber. One parting snap shot was all I got.

By now, I was fully convinced that I was the original "faux pas." Although I had just passed through a long season of duck shooting, where I had relearned for the ten thousandth time the old lesson not to be caught napping, here I was blundering around as though I had never had a gun in my hands.

It was dark before I reached the river. The fire showed up a long ways off, gleaming a steady red beacon through the trees. The others were in ahead of me and as I approached, I could see their red top knots shining in the firelight. There was no meat in camp as yet, at least none that I could see. Perhaps, I hadn't been so unfortunate after all.

Glenn was the first to look up. "Well," he remarked, "where's that heart and liver. We've got the frying pan all greased up and hot waiting for it."

That gave me my clue, or so I thought. Leaning my rifle against a tree, I took the place reserved for me in the circle, lit a cigarette and answered as casually as possible, "speaking of heart and live, I guess mine is doing duty like the rest."

At that there was a raising of eyebrows and an exchange of glances that could only be interpreted in one way. Someone had killed a deer.

"Get any shooting at all?" asked the dean, after a weighty moment's silence.

"Nothing but a snap shot," I answered. "Couldn't get within a mile of anything today." Then remembering the shooting I had heard toward the narrows early in the morning, I turned around to Glenn and asked him to come across.

Without a word, he rose, walked over to a tree behind the tent and lifted something from a crotch. Then coming over to me, he held it under my nose for investigation. It was a heart and liver, sure enough.

Without any further urging, he told how a spike buck had all but walked over him on the trail alongside the narrows. Then as though that wasn't enough, Hilliard piped up and told how he too had dropped a nice little doe near Dunnigan Lake. The dean was still in my class and I could see that the situation rankled, for he too was supposed to be experienced.

That evening we spent praying for snow and cold, snow for tracking and cold to freeze the river solid enough so that we could snake our deer out on the ice. The prospect of a four mile carry through the woods was anything but pleasant. If it stayed warm, it might even necessitate cutting up our meat and packing it in quarters and that was a possibility that none of us relished. We all felt the same way about it. The wallop was half gone if we couldn't bring our deer in whole and then for me, there was my promise to Junior.

"We're never satisfied," spoke Hilliard at last. "During duck season, it's rain and cold, when we're fishing it's got to be cloudy, and now snow. You'd think that the only time it's possible for us to have any luck, is when it's miserable."

"It's all right for you to talk," grumbled the dean, "your reputation is safe."

Next morning, bright and early, we hit the trail. There were only two of us hunting, Glenn and Hilliard having planned to spend the day dragging theirs in to camp.

I hunted in the same general direction I had taken the day before. Mid-afternoon found me on a heavily timbered ridge overlooking a frozen grassy swale below. Here was as wild and likely a looking spot as I had ever seen, and strangely enough, I had the premonition that here I would make my kill. Not having kept track of my directions since leaving camp, it seemed as though I was miles away. I remember distinctly, wondering at the time, as though the kill were already a settled fact, how in the world I would ever get my meat out.

I settled down then to wait at a spot where I could overlook all but one small corner of the swale, hidden by a heavy clump of young jack pine half ways down the slope. I thought some of moving to the top of the ridge from where I knew I would have a clear view, but dismissed it as an unnecessary precaution. Besides, I was very comfortable where I was.

Ten minutes passed, then down across the swamp, a branch cracked sharply. I looked up. A brown form moved slowly through the alder brush bordering the opening and then disappeared. I waited expectantly. Presently, a big buck stalked boldly out and started crossing the swamp. Now I had occasion to curse, for the clump of jack pine was directly in line. Although I could see him plainly through the through the dense screen of branches, it was impossible to shoot. Why hadn't I follwed my first hunch and moved? I sat there helplessly and watched him work his way to the center of the pothole. There he stopped and proceeded to paw through the thin ice for water. I could have tried a shot then, but decided to wait. Perhaps he would keep on coming toward me and cross the ridge I was on.

He drank daintily and started on once more. I could see now that ht had a wonderful spread of horns. Never in all my life will I forget that moment. On he came, as though he had all the time in the world, as yet oblivious of the death that awaited him on the other side.

So far, I hadn't had a decent shot, though several times I saw him fairly well through the screen of branches before me. Once I thought of shooting, but he disappeared while I was getting my bead. He was now at the base of my ridge, well hidden in a dense growth of alder. I could hear him plainly, moving around, feeding on the brush. Now was my chance. Leaving my hiding place, I crawled swiftly to the top of the ridge where I should have been in the first place. There wasn't a sound from the thicket now and for a moment I was overwhelmed with the sickening thought that he was gone. Perhaps, he was standing still, listening and getting the wind.

It wasn't long before I heard him again, now coming directly toward me. Once I saw a movement in the brush, but it was gone in an instant. The buck was now within a hundred feet of me, but still I couldn't see him. If he should come out, it would be nothing but sheer murder and I instinctively recoiled at the thought of making a kill at that range.

Suddenly I saw a movement behind a bunch of balsams not seventy-five feet away, just a swaying of the branches, nothing more. Then he stopped dead and for the first time, I knew he was suspicious. Now things began to happen. With a wild snort, the deer wheeled, crashed down the slope and to my joy headed for the swamp the way he had come. He hit the grass going like the wind, flag up and horns back, twenty feet at a jump. I drew a hurried bead on his shoulder and fired. It was a clean miss. Another bead at the point of his nose and he dropped almost out of sight in the muskeg.

I waited a moment to see if he would get up and then ran down to where he lay. He was stone dead and querrly enough did not have a bullet mark on him. Not until I had him cleaned did a telltale drop of blood give the secret away. I had hit him at the base of the skull, the bullet having penetrated between the ears without even ruffling the hair.

I sat down upon a hummock of moss after I was all through and took a long deferred smoke. My buck was a nice one, about two hundred pounds in weight and with good horns, full fashioned too. I rested for half an hour and lived through once more every second of the time I'd spent on the jack pine ridge above me. By now the whiskey jacks had begun to gather and I was ready to move.

Throwing some brush over the carcass, I left, blazing a north-south line toward the river. To my surprise, it was only a little over a mile. My zigzagging had fooled me, but at that it was far enough.

No one was in camp, but a nice spike buck and a doe were hanging alongside the tent. Glenn and Hilliard had gotten theirs in. They must have gone out again to help bring in the dean's. Some time later, as I was enjoying a cup of coffee, I heard a yell from the direction of the river. I gog up and ran down to the shore. It was the dean dragging his along the ice. Glenn and Hilliard came in shortly afterwards. They had struck the ice a mile above camp and the dean against their advice, had proceeded to take his deer down the river in spite of the fact that it had been thawing all day. Now we all went down to help and to the tune of cracking ice dragged the doe ashore and up to camp.

That night, we recounted our many adventures over and over again, elaborating and polishing, until each tale had become a finished product that could bear telling and retelling without the danger of plagiarism. It was a night to be remembered. For once we were at peace with the world.

The next few days might better be gone over briefly. Much to our disgust, the weather turned warmer, making the swamps impassable and worst of all weakening the ice hopelessly on the river. Although we hated to admit it, we were up against it as far as getting our game out whole was concerned. We waited but in vain. The sun kept on shining and the wind stayed in the south. There was only one thing left to do, quarter our animals and pack them in as so much duffle. It was a disheartening joy to say the least, to bid goodbye to all hopes of a grand triumphant entry.

As we drove into town that last night my courage all but left me. Junior met me at the gate as I knew he would.

A wild yell of greeting and then "Daddy, where's your deer?"

I pointed at the pack sace tied to the running board. He took one look and his jaw dropped. "Daddy, I thought—" and he buried his disappointment in the rough folds of my mackinaw. One Stag Pants Galahad had fallen from grace.