■Or •S’uhKin An* her WL 14
JiHarrlj, 1943
?«o. n
Archer’s Dream Comes True By Bill “Jolly” Jeter Sequoia Archers, Oakland, Calif.
On the 29th day of October, 1942, a sign was placed on the door of my hot dog stand to the effect that ‘'Jolly Jeter wishes to thank all of his customers for making his va cation possible—closed October 29th —open November 15th.” Those 15 days were to me the most thrilling days of my 34 years. With our trailers packed with food, tent, and camping equipment, my wife Beatrice, two children Judy and Phyllis, a neighbor girl Janetta Hogue as our guest, and my Dober..man. Pincer dog Punch, we crossed the SariFrancisco Bay Bridge at 5:20 A. M. Sunday morning, October 30th, bound for Mendocino county, the heart of the Redwood country. By nightfall we had reached our destination, pitched our tent, and had eaten as good a dinner as a 20 cent can opener could produce. Bed ded down in our tent we slept like logs. It had been my intention to arise early and hit the timber but the clock’s hand pointed to 8:30 A. M. before I awoke. Spurred to action, I dressed in record time and, hungry as a wolf, I could hardly wait until my wife and Janetta .cooked break fast. The combined aroma of coffee, bacon and the redwood trees made me feel like a domesticated Tarzan and I was raring to go. With my quiver full of broadheads and a darn good osage bow backed with rawhide, a 62-27 killer, my dog Punch and I left camp. We had gone about a mile and one-half when Punch let out a yelp that echoed like thunder; well, maybe it wasn’t quite so loud but to me it sounded like it. He was away—gone on up the canyon and out of hearing in no time. I thought sure I had lost
him, but he was back in about an hour. As I sat waiting for him to return, smoking and pitching pebbles in the small stream below me, I was watching a flock of buzzards circling up ahead about three or four city blocks. I set out to investigate and found the half eaten body of a doe near by. The odor of the darned thing made me change my course home ward. I arrived back at camp about 3:30, had a good lunch, and then tried my luck fishing in the stream 100 yards from the camp—good luck, ten trout about eight inches long. My little girl Judy, helping me clean them, remarked, seeing the gills, “Look, Daddy, this one has seed in it.” With a good night’s sleep behind us we awakened bright and early and I planned to leave soon after break fast. By 8:30 I was 2% miles from camp, following the river bed wind ing its way up the canyon. Punch’s feet were a little bit tender from yesterday’s deer chase so he wasn’t leading me very far when all of a sudden he came back to me with a yelp* acting as though something had frightened him. I hissed him on and back he went, and within a split second I heard him bark and he head ed down to the river out of my sight. I had been working my way up the mountainside about 30 yards to avoid wading the stream. I heard him bark furiously as though he had some thing bayed. I slipped and crawled ahead about 60 yards through the opening of trees. I could see Punch standing on the opposite sand bar, facing toward me but because of the foliage and trees I couldn’t see what he had. With the sure footedness of an excited heifer, my heart beating