The Deer Stalker

by Zane Grey

  “Bing Dyott! Judson with Settlemire! Well, I’ll be a—” exclaimed Eburne in genuine amazement.

  “Humph! I thought it’d strike you queer. Well, Dyott an’ Settlemire drew off to one side an’ had a long confab. It was serious, an’ they were sure acquainted with each other. Judson acted uneasy, as if he’d be glad when the council was over. Dyott’s men lounged around whisperin’ together mysterious like an’ laughin’ among themselves…. Well, presently Settlemire went back to his horse an’ called Judson. They rode off toward the valley, no doubt makin’ for Lower Pools where his cattle outfit is now. Then some of Dyott’s men fetched up their pack-horses an’ they started to make camp. Judgin’ from the look of their horses an’ packs, the gang had come a long way. Now, Eburne, can you make anythin’ of this meetin’?”

  “No, not offhand,” replied Thad gravely. “But it doesn’t look straight.”

  “Well, some things you’d call crooked are just plain business dealin’—with a big cattleman like Settlemire,” rejoined Blakener. “We can think what we want, sure, but if we’re goin’ to make reports we’ve got to be careful. Let’s keep mum about this. An’ let’s get our heads together right now to see what we can make of it.”

  Settlemire was at the head of the Houserock Cattle Company, which operated in southern Utah and northern Arizona. He was known to get along well with the Mormons, and it was suspected that he had influence with some one high in the forest service. His cattle outfit had broken about all of the forest regulations, and there was strong feeling between the rangers and his cowboys.

  This prosperous cattleman had always bitterly resented the developing of the great deer herd upon Buckskin. He had government grazing permits to run his cattle all over the forest. Since the over-multiplication of the deer, these permits had been gradually reduced and withdrawn until this year they had been revoked entirely and Settlemire had been ordered to drive his cattle off the preserve.

  “That was the order,” declared Blakener. “I saw it myself this spring in Kanab. But Settlemire still has three thousand head runnin’ over on the west side. An’ he’s makin’ absolutely no move to round them up an’ drive them off. He’s not goin’ to move them while there’s any grass left. Now it’s sure plain he’s got a pull somewhere. An’ we always knew why he opposed the spreadin’ of the deer herd. But where do Judson an’ Dyott fit in here?”

  “That’s a stumper, I’ll agree,” answered Eburne. “You see, in the case of Judson, we’re somewhat in the dark as to his actual status. He’s not a ranger or a supervisor. He claims to be an inspector. Anyway, we know he has always catered to rich cattlemen and dallied around with the tourists, especially when they’re women. In this instance he’s probably favoring Settlemire’s schemes, whatever they are.”

  “Sure. Settlemire wants to regain his grazin’ permits an’ to see the deer herd depleted by killin’. Judson is for both of these plans.”

  It was not so easy for the rangers to fix Dyott’s part in the situation. Dyott had a bad name. Some fifteen years back he had been a rustler, and before that, as a boy, he had ridden with the notorious Hash Knife gang of the Mogollons. Of late years he had been making small deals in cattle, chiefly among the Mormons. Eburne had long suspected that Dyott killed deer on the preserve and sold the meat. His outfit was a hard-riding one that kept to the rough canyons and brakes of the forest. Rangers as a rule avoided contact with Dyott’s men.

  “It occurred to me that Settlemire might hire Dyott to drive the deer back from where his cattle are grazin’,” suggested Blakener.

  “Would that pay Settlemire?” asked Thad doubtfully.

  “Well, it might save what cattle he has left.”

  “There must be something more, though that hunch is not to be overlooked,” returned Thad. “If in addition to this, Dyott is in here to kill deer … You say the preserve will be open to hunters this fall? That means thousands of deer killed and packed out. It wouldn’t be impossible for Dyott’s gang to clean up rich on some kind of a butchering deer job. Still, to find a market for a lot of meat! It’d be difficult.”

  “Maybe there’s something in the wind we’ve not hit on yet,” suggested Blakener.

  “Right. Let’s go to bed and sleep on it,” rejoined Eburne, rising with a yawn.

  CHAPTER TWO

  EBURNE’S slumbers did not clarify in any degree the rather dubious relation between Dyott and the cattleman or inspire him with any wonderful ideas as to the best method of trapping deer.

  He got out before sunrise and walked around the station, through the edge of the forest. Not one deer rewarded his roving eye. The morning was clear and cold. Bluebells peeped up wanly from the frost-whitened grass that he brushed as he strode along. There was no sound. The forest seemed a dead wilderness. He found his horse at the far end of the pasture and was glad to see that the grass there afforded better grazing than in the open forest.

  The sun came up, rosy and bright, illuminating the steely blue scene. Thad returned to the cabin, where he helped get breakfast. His conversation with Blakener soon reverted to the deer question.

  “Forgot to tell you,” said Blakener with animation. “Cassell’s goin’ to send out two deer traps. Cleveland somethin’ or other he called them—made in Michigan. Said he had some cornin’ from Ogden. Looks to me that he’s had this trappin’ stunt in his mind for some time.”

  “Probably he means to stick the dirty job on other rangers too,” replied Eburne.

  “Sure, I heard him tell Judson he’d had several orders for live deer.”

  “Humph! The more I think of it the more absurd it seems,” said Thad forcefully. “Still, to be honest, I really don’t know. I think deer will kill themselves if trapped in close quarters. But thinking isn’t knowing. This is a chance for me to find out. I’ve my orders and I’ve got to carry them out or quit. As I won’t quit, I’ll just have to swallow my feelings and meanwhile add to my knowledge of deer.”

  “Sure. Now you’re talkin’,” rejoined his comrade heartily. “I’ll tell you what, Thad, I’ll help you all I can. But you’ve got to do the figurin’.”

  Eburne was quite conscious that it would take a good deal of mental and physical effort if there were to be even anything approaching success. To that end he set out on the unwelcome task. In the shed he found several bales of wire and a quantity of old lumber, slabs with the bark on one side. These would come in handy when the time arrived to build fences and pens. Then he walked down the park to look over the ground around the spring. The season had been the driest for years. Water was far from abundant. The spring was lower than Eburne had ever seen it. As far as he knew there were only four other springs on that side of Buckskin.

  After carefully getting the lay of the land, Thad decided to fence in the water and have the wings converge into a narrow chute that led into a corral around the spring. He did not know how many deer watered at this place, but he believed they might number over a thousand. There was no other water near, and the deer in the vicinity had become used to this spring and they would not readily abandon it.

  He spent the day watching and planning. About three o’clock, deer began to come down into the park to drink. Often as Thad had watched them, he seemed never to have seen them as gaunt as now. They were as tame as cattle yet were really wild deer. They came in troops, by twos and threes, and in sizable herds; and now and then a lordly stag, almost as big and stately as an elk, walked in alone. The little fawns caught Eburne’s eye and delighted him. Some does had twin fawns, graceful, beautiful spotted little creatures, as playful as kittens.

  These deer were all lean, and they somehow lacked the sleek, velvety, rich gray usually common to deer on the plateau. The bucks appeared to be in the best condition, as was natural. Sometimes there would be forty or fifty at a time around the water hole. They did not linger long, however, and soon worked off into the woods, plainly aware of Thad’s presence. The newcomers would come in, scent or see him, stand with long ears erect,
motionless as statues for moments, and then go on for their drink. Still, they were uneasy. If Thad had been on horseback or even moving along on foot, they would have shown less interest.

  By sunset, Thad calculated that more than six hundred deer had come in to drink. No doubt many more came after it was too dark to see them.

  “Well, Blakener,” announced Eburne upon his return to the cabin, “if deer can be trapped this is the best place ever, and the most propitious time. They are hungry and thirsty. With water and hay we can coax them anywhere. Oh, we can trap them easily enough. But what they’ll do the moment they’re trapped! That’s the rub.”

  “I saw one old buck walk by here,” commented Blakener. “Say, he was as big as a steer. Now, I wonder what he’d do in a trap.”

  “He’d make us climb the fence,” replied Thad. “An old buck is bad medicine, unless you’re on a horse…. Well, tomorrow we’ll begin to stretch wire. I don’t believe we’ll have to put in many posts. There’re a lot of trees except down in the meadow. And I think it’ll be best to do this work only in the mornings. I don’t want to scare the deer before we get the trap built.”

  Next morning, while the deer stalker was laboriously stretching wire, a horseman rode into the park. He was leading a pack-horse, behind which trotted a number of hounds. The ranger did not need to look twice. The visitor was his old friend Jim Evers, the former predatory game hunter for the government.

  “Hello there, old-timer,” called the ranger heartily as his friend rode up.

  “Howdy, Thad,” drawled Evers, reaching out to grasp the proffered hand.

  The Texan was a striking figure, despite the bowed shoulders that told of encroaching age. His face was lean, red, keen as an Indian’s, and remarkable for the long sloping lines and the narrow slits from which his blue eyes flashed. His garb, his weapons, the trappings of his horses, his pack—all showed long service in the open.

  “Blackener told me you’d ridden down to look over your buffalo,” said Thad. “I’m glad I didn’t miss you today. How’d you find the herd, Jim?”

  “Wal, they wintered fine,” replied the hunter. “Got twelve new calves. But I reckon I’m aboot ready to sell out. I cain’t take care of thet herd. They shore ain’t never been nothin’ in it for me. I’m goin’ to sell—one hundred dollars a head. Mebbe I can get the government to take them, off my hands.”

  “Jim, I’m inclined to think the government already has one white elephant on its hands here—this tame deer herd.”

  “Great guns, yes,” mildly exploded Jim. “It’s a shame aboot these deer—Thad, I’m invitin’ myself to eat with you an’ stay all night.”

  “Old-timer, you’re welcome as the flowers in May,” responded Thad warmly, “Let’s go up to the cabin and throw your pack. You can turn the horses loose in the corral.”

  “What you all doin’ with this heah wire? Son, don’t you calkilate fences is as bad as them automobiles?”

  “Indeed I do, Jim. But I’ve my orders. And I’m supposed to trap some of these deer. Trap them alive to ship out of Arizona!”

  “Wal, jumpin’ juniper!” drawled the old hunter. “Who and what and why now?”

  Eburne briefly explained the situation and was not a little gratified to have Evers forcefully deliver himself of views that coincided with his own.

  “Wal, it’s this way,” continued the hunter, “these government fellars air all right an’ want to do good, but they jest don’t know. It takes a lifetime to learn anythin’. Now, I’ve been huntin’ on Buckskin for twenty years. I’ve seen this deer herd grow from five to fifty thousand. You rangers say twenty thousand, but you don’t see the deer us hunters see. Why, down in the brakes of the Siwash, where you never get, there’s ten deer to one thet’s in heah…. Wal, killin’ off the varmints, specially the cougars, has broken the balance of nature so far as these deer are concerned. Herds of deer, runnin’ free, will never thrive whar the cougars have been killed off. The price of healthy life in the open is eternal vigilance—eternal watch an’ struggle against death by violence. Man cain’t remove thet balance an’ expect nature to correct it. These heah deer ain’t had nothin’ to check their overbreedin’ an’ inbreedin’. They jest doubled an’ trebled. Buckskin is a queer sort of range. Canyon on one side an’ bare desert all around. The deer cain’t migrate as they do in other places. They just eat up everythin’. An’ now they’re goin’ to starve or die of disease.”

  “Something must be done before it’s too late,” asserted Eburne.

  “Wal, Thad, it’s most too late now. For part of the herd, anyhow. Conditions ain’t favorable. There wasn’t much snow last winter. Thet means poor grazin’. An’ it’ll be a dry summer. The deer air eatin’ the aspens, junipers, buckbrush. You cain’t find an aspen saplin’. Why, the deer seem turnin’ into beavers. Then the government’s goin’ to let a jam of hunters come in this fall to kill deer.”

  “So Blakener told me. But I can’t believe it, Jim. That would be such a rotten thing to do. After developing this wonderful herd, taming them almost to eat out of your hand, advertising them to thousands of tourists as the greatest sight in the west—to let hunters murder them! It’s pretty low-down.”

  “Shore is. An’ I’m not thinkin’ much of the kind of hunters who’d shoot tame deer for sport. But I’m givin’ you a hunch, Eburne: thet very stunt is cornin’ off. I’m on the inside. I’ve got friends in Kanab —they’re Mormons—an’ they tipped me off. They’re all smackin’ their lips at the prospect of venison all winter. An’ laughin’ up their sleeves because Arizona hunters won’t be permitted to shoot on Buckskin.”

  “Well, I’ll be hanged!” ejaculated Eburne, confounded. “Jim, you’re hinting that the government will permit hunters to shoot deer this fall and the State will oppose it.”

  “Shore. An’ the funny part will be to see you rangers helpin’ the hunters avoid arrest.”

  “I’ll do nothing of the sort,” declared Thad stoutly.

  “Wal, then you’ll get fired,” drawled Jim complacently. “It’ll be a healthy mess, an’ you can gamble I’m glad I’m out of the service.”

  “Come along. Let’s go to the cabin,” said the ranger shortly. He strode off, leading Jim’s pack-horse. The long-eared hounds trotted beside him, wagging their tails and begging with solemn eyes. They had visited Eburne before. When the men reached the cabin, Blakener called out a cheery welcome to dinner. Thad helped the old hunter unpack and carry his effects inside. They had dinner, and an interesting talk in the pleasant living room. Later, as the afternoon advanced, Evers accompanied Eburne out to watch the deer come in.

  “Wal, Thad, the particular reason I dropped in on you today I ain’t told yet,” said the hunter.

  “Oh, you haven’t?” returned Thad with curiosity. “Out with it, Jim. I hope to goodness you’ve saved the best for the last.”

  “Wal, it’s only an idee, an’ it’s not mine, but it shore is amazin’,” rejoined Evers thoughtfully.

  Eburne did not importune the old hunter, though he sensed something out of the ordinary. They found a seat under a pine tree above the spring, so situated that they could watch the deer come to the spring without being seen. Already a few deer had entered the meadow and at the moment were standing motionless, long ears erect, gazing at the edge of the forest where the men were hidden. Evers lighted his pipe.

  “Thad, you’re well acquainted with Bill McKay?” he queried finally, with deliberation.

  “Indeed I am. We’re good friends. I think a heap of Bill. But I haven’t seen him since he began boring for oil out on the Indian reservation.”

  “Wal, thet fell through like so many things Mac has tackled. He’s onlucky…. I met him yesterday packin’ across Houserock Valley. He’s workin’ a mine down in the canyon. Somewhere near the foot of Tanner’s trail, but on this side of the river. Says there’s copper, gold, an’ silver. Wal, me an’ Bill had a bite of grub together, an’ we talked a lot. Naturally I touched on this heah deer p
roblem, which is really close to my heart. I told Bill the conditions an’ how they had riled up government, forest officers, rangers, Mormons, an’ everybody generally. Then Bill whacked me with his sledge-hammer fist so hard he near knocked me flat. ‘Jim,’ he says, ‘I’ve an idee!’ ”

  “McKay always was full of ideas,” rejoined Eburne as Jim paused to take a puff on his pipe and to allow time for suspense to take hold of his listener. “In fact he’s a far-sighted man.”

  “Heah is what he said: ‘Jim, you know the deer herd splits in winter, part goin’ down off the mountain in the west brakes, an’ part on this east slope. There’s ten or fifteen thousand deer winter on these cedar an’ sage slopes. Now you know there’s a wall of rock reachin’ from the Cocks Combs to the Saddle Gap, an’ another wall runnin’ off the other side under Saddle Mountain. These heah walls form a fence up which no deer can climb. An’ they head up where the Saddle trail goes through the Gap an’ down into the canyon.’— Mac dropped down on his knee when he was tellin’ me all this, an’ he drawed maps on the ground. An’ I said yes, I agreed aboot the lay of the land.”

  Here Evers paused again, but he was too thrilled or obsessed by the information he had to impart to remember his pipe.

  “ ‘Jim,’ says Mac, ‘give me a hundred Indians an’ fifty cowboys an’ I can drive ten thousand deer through the Saddle Gap, down the canyon, across the Colorado River, an’ up Tanner’s trail to the rim—right into forest ranges where feed an’ water are aplenty.’ ”

  Eburne stared. His jaw dropped. The idea was amazing.

  “Drive ten thousand deer!” he exclaimed finally.

  “Shore. Thet’s what Mac said. First off I gave him the laugh. But the idee got me. It’s great. I know the country. The deer are tame. They might drive. The more I thought aboot it the bigger the idee got. An’ now I’m stuck on it. Shore it’s grand.”