buck deer, at certain seasons, or when wounded, may be very ugly customers; and in hunting east and west, i have had several unpleasant experiences with them. the very first deer i ever killed, up in the new hampshire mountains, came wonderfully close to killing me—after his hind leg was broken at the hip and i thought it was quite safe to close in to finish him. how he literally “wiped the ground” with me!
others of his kind have given me trouble and danger in varying degrees, and in a variety of ways; and i have known several persons killed by them. but the “closest call” a deer ever gave me, and one of the most terrible struggles in all my hunting and wandering, befell me in the heart of the city of los angeles; and the hero was a “tame” buck.
it was many years ago, at a time when my passion for pets, always strong, had unusual opportunities for gratification in[300] one of the moss-gathering intervals of a usually rolling stone. behind the house (where a half-million dollar block stands to-day) was a good-sized yard, for a city lot, well shaded with eucalyptus trees, and with a substantial shed. here was plenty of room for pets, and we acquired a variety of them.
first in our affection was my precious old cat beauty, which had come with the family from ohio. there was also a horse, which boarded at the livery stable; and a fine danish hound that had adopted us. this did very well for a while. but during a vacation run over new mexico, i wounded a young eagle; and, seeing that his wing would soon heal under proper care, i brought him home and kept him in a leash on the back porch, where he throve admirably.
then someone presented me with a barn-owl, and he kept the eagle company. rabbits have always pleased me; and presently i made some hutches, and in time had them peopled with a dozen rabbits and guinea-pigs. in a cage in my study lived a couple of handsome rattlesnakes; and one day i brought home in a slatted box a tiny wildcat—at which a patient wife cried:
“don’t get anything more, charlie! we can’t move now without stepping on a pet;[301] and they are too much care for me, with you gone at the office all day and almost all night!”
but in spite of herself she grew very fond of the wildcat baby, which would lie in her lap and purr with the most ridiculously disproportionate voice. it could hardly have been a month old; and had i been the hunter who found it in the sierra madre, it should never have been taken from its fierce mother at such an age—for it had not been weaned, evidently.
its body was not as large as that of a lean house-cat, but its legs were quite one-half longer, so that it had rather the appearance of being on stilts—and very uncertain, wobbly ones, too. its feet were twice the size of beauty’s, and its voice, in growling, was so heavy and so savage that one could scarce believe it issued from that ungainly little frame.
it was very gentle with its mistress, purred sonorously whenever she petted it, and went stumbling all over the house at her heels. nor was it hostile to the young lady who completed our family, not half so afraid of beauty as beauty was of this wild cousin. but with me it would have nothing to do. as i was then city editor of the morning newspaper, and was very little at[302] home, it evidently looked upon me as an interloper, and at a glance of me would snarl and show fight as sincerely as a grown lynx. and it was an enemy not altogether to be laughed at, as there are still scars to testify.
once it climbed up and hid among the springs of my bed, and the heavy buck gloves i put on for the task of dislodging it did not save me from ugly tastes of those keen teeth and claws. perhaps it is quite as well that tiger did not survive his infancy, but died of congestion at four or five months old. had he grown up, without a change of heart, he might have become troublesome.
with this much of a household on our hands, we might very reasonably have been content; and so probably should have been but for one of those “chances of a lifetime” which are always befalling the enthusiast. a fellow down in the mexican quarter of the city had a pet deer, and, learning of my hobby, pestered me to buy—“dirt cheap, sir!”
“no, i don’t want any deer. couldn’t take care of him.”
“oh, but he is such a beauty, sir, and tame as a sheep, and $10 is nothing. just come and look at him!”
[303]
well, it could do no harm to go and look at a pretty animal; so i went—with a virtuous resolve not to acquire another single pet.
the result was what might have been expected. he was a beauty. there is almost nothing handsomer than a perfect black-tail, and this was an excellent specimen—full grown, though young, with one fork on his dagger-sharp antlers, and gentle as a kitten. the first look of those liquid eyes made my resolution tremble; and when the lovely creature came and nestled his face into my vest with perfect confidence, i was lost.
i could not even wait to send an express-man for him. “here is your $10,” said i; “and now give me a rope to lead him home.”
the rope was put around that graceful neck, and i started off in high glee. he followed me like a lamb through the back streets, paying little attention to people or wagons—for he had passed most of his life in the city—and much less abashed than his new master by the sensation we created. once safely at home, i gave him a strong leather collar and a long steel chain, the other end of which hooked into a staple in the side of the shed.
bonito, as we named him, seemed very content in his new home. at night he had[304] a comfortable bed in the shed, and by day his place outside. there was plenty of alfalfa and young wheat, which we had cut for him from the rabbits’ patch, and bread and sugar from the house; and every morning my habit was to loose his chain and let him wander about the yard with me.
he had a great curiosity about the rabbits and the owl, a fair understanding with giallo, the dog, a supreme contempt for the little wildcat—which had been transferred to a big cage in the yard and roared at us whenever we approached. as for the three human members of the family, he was hail-fellow-well-met with us all. he kept putting himself forward to be petted, delighted to be scratched behind the ears, and would rather eat from our hands than from his trough.
for five or six months bonito was the pride of the family. he had grown very fat, and was sleek and handsome as one could wish. but with the advance of summer he turned misanthrope. he began to paw a considerable hollow by his post, and now and again stamped his hoof on the ground with that peculiarly audible rap which with wild deer is an alarm-signal sufficient to stampede a quietly grazing herd. then he began to show some contempt[305] for being petted, and several times pushed us away in a manner nothing short of rude.
at last i came home one night to find my wife much worked up. she had gone out that afternoon to feed bonito and was giving him an apple, when suddenly he lowered his head and sprang at her. luckily the sharp horns passed either side the slender waist, pinning her against the shed, but not hurting her; and with much presence of mind, instead of fainting or screaming or struggling, she scratched beneath his ears soothingly, and he at last let her escape unharmed.
“h’m! well, don’t you go near him again,” said i. “i’ll attend to him myself, if that’s his temper;” and i forthwith procured a new chain.
several times in the next few weeks he made lunges at me, but again would seem gentle and would enjoy a petting. against my wife, however, he appeared to have taken a sudden grudge, and would tug on his chain at sight of her.
one saturday she went to visit friends at the beach, and i was to follow on the half-past eight train next morning. it was four o’clock in the morning when i saw the paper to press and came home, and at[306] seven o’clock got up to care for the pets before leaving.
when i went out to the yard, the deer was not there. the staple was torn out, and the drag of the chain enabled me to find where bonito had jumped the fence and made off. i trailed him several blocks, and at last found him impudently grazing on a handsome lawn on hill street.
he did not attempt to elude me, and when i took the end of the chain he followed as meekly as you please, only stopping now and then to nibble a bit of grass by the sidewalk.
unluckily just then i pulled out my watch. seven-fifty! time to hurry up—and when don bonito stooped to graze, i leaned back on the chain and brought him along. five or six times this happened, and i fancied he was not quite so meek. hungry he could not be—it was just his stupid notion to take a bite by the wayside; and my train would not wait for that. so each time that he halted, a steady but resistless pull brought him sliding forward, brace his feet as he would.
the last time i pulled there was a surprise. for an instant he held back with all his strength, and then, suddenly hunching his body like a panther, he gave a great[307] bound at me. losing balance at this sudden yielding of the weight, i sprawled on the sidewalk, and bonito pounced upon me like a cat, cutting my leg with his sharp hoofs, and aiming his sharper horns at my ribs. it was as well that he had to do with no novice at catch-as-can wrestling, for without those years of keen practice i never should have come out from the next fifteen minutes—if, indeed, from the first onslaught. as it was, i clutched a horn at the first pass, within six inches of my side; and then, capturing the other, readily got my feet.
this head-lock counter-balanced his 20 pounds’ superiority in weight, but the very fact of being overpowered made him beside himself. he began to fight with inconceivable fury, twisting till he seemed like to break his neck in the effort to free his horns or get at me with his feet.
it began to appear that he had me in something like a “box.” it was equally out of the question to let him go or try to lead him farther. every motion or snort of the infuriated animal showed that his one thought now was not escape, but revenge.
still, confident in my muscles—like steel yet from a thirty-five-hundred-mile walk across the continent—i had no apprehensions. the only thing necessary was to[308] take him home in such fashion that he could not hurt me; and once there, the chain would take care of him.
so i got my left arm locked in a chancery hold around his neck, my right hand still firmly holding his right horn, which worked uncomfortably close to my stomach, and thus, lifting him so that his fore feet were off the ground, i started homeward.
but there had been a reckoning without the host. the first two blocks went fairly, though in an unceasing violent struggle—rather to the scandal of the two or three passers we met, so early for sunday morning in that quiet part of the town. but when i came with my prisoner to fifth street, it was with the consciousness that i was pretty well worn out, and that he, in spite of the strangle-lock, seemed to be growing fresher.
each moment he fought with new rage and vigor, sometimes driving me against the fence, sometimes over the curb; lunging fiercely with those sinewy hind-legs, and striking wildly with the pointed fore-hoofs, whose dangerous effectiveness every hunter knows.
the way we wrestled and fought over the next six or seven hundred feet might have been amusing to bystanders, but became[309] terrible to me. it was not for the bruises and gashes i got, nor for the breathless thumps against fences and trees, nor for the being violently thrown several times. i kept his head in chancery, and these small hurts were not much more than one expects to get in a good bout of catch-as-can with a human adversary.
as long as i could keep that deadlock on his neck i was perfectly safe from any serious injury, but the grim certainty confronted me that i could not keep it much longer. my arm began to give at his fiercest lunges, my breath and heart were alike stampeding, and i felt creeping over me the dizzy faintness of utter exhaustion. never had wrestler given me such tussle before—though i have worked two hours “on the carpet” at a bout.
down we went again at the last corner, and again a glancing hoof cut me as i fought back to my feet. i dropped the horn and clasped the left wrist with my right hand, drawing the arm tighter under the brute’s throat, at once to hold him surer and cut off his wind. but the broad leather collar seemed to save him. a burly fellow passed. “help me with this deer!” i panted; but he looked at the savage struggles of bonito and hurried on.
[310]
at the very gate the beast bore me down once more; but once more i struggled up and dragged him in. we swayed and fought along, tearing up the gravel-walks and flower-beds, and at last came to the shed. i could barely stand, and bonito dragged me hither and yon. my eyes were hazy, and the cramped arms began to slip. would virginia never come? i yelled again, and just then she came running out.
“fasten—his chains—around the post!” i had just breath to gasp; and, like the brave girl she was, she did it—in what seemed to me forever, while the deer and i fought the last bout.
“run!” i cried, when the chain was at last secured; and when she was in the back door, i dragged bonito to the end of his chain, loosed my hold and fell backward. i am positive that i could not have held him twenty seconds longer to save my life.
he slacked back on the tether and hurled himself forward till the steel links cracked again, and his eyes fairly started with the pressure on his throat. but the chain held, and his frantic efforts, which continued as long as i was in sight, were in vain. had a link parted then, he would have had an easy victim. a few minutes’ breathing-spell made me over, and by a bit of good fortune[311] i caught the next train, and reached long beach not far behind time—though with various large rents and blood stains on my clothing.
the next day a butcher was summoned to rid us of so dangerous a pet. he dealt bonito a fearful blow on the forehead with a hatchet. the deer dropped as if shot, and lay motionless; and the butcher stepped forward with his knife. but like a flash the brute was on his feet again—and on his assailant, whose coat was pierced front and back by the sharp antlers. it was a remarkable chance that they had not entered his abdomen.
the butcher’s fat, rosy face turned a sickly gray. he kept his distance after that, and with a long-handled ax made thrice sure of the game before he would venture again within the radius of that chain.
bonito dressed one hundred and fifty-six pounds—so you see he was no feather-weight for a wrestler. he was fat, and they said very good venison. at home we could not think of eating the meat of a former pet; but after his exploits, our sentiment did not go so far as to make us sorry that someone else could.
and since then i have never had an ambition to get another “tame deer.”
