For
numberless years Indians had used these as blinds to secure camp meat.
In the same necessity, the Indian would lie in wait near licks or
springs to get his food; but he never killed wantonly.
Although Ishi took me on many deer hunts and we had several shots at
deer, owing to the distance or the fall of the ground or obstructing
trees, we registered nothing better than encouraging misses. He was
undoubtedly hampered by the presence of a novice, and unduly hastened
by the white man's lack of time. His early death prevented our ultimate
achievement in this matter, so it was only after he had gone to the
Happy Hunting Grounds that I, profiting by his teachings, killed my
first deer with the bow.
That he had shot many deer, even since boyhood, there was no doubt. To
prove that he could shoot through one with his arrows, I had him
discharge several at a buck killed by our packer. Shooting at forty
yards, one arrow went through the chest wall, half its length; another
struck the spine and fractured it, both being mortal wounds.
It was the custom of his tribe to hunt until noon, when by that time
they usually had several deer, obtained, as a rule, by the ambush
method.
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