LONELY LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 39, 15 February 1935, Page 5

LONELY LIFE.

DEER SHOOTERS. IN SOUTH ISLAND RANGES. «NO JOB FOR A WEAKLING." Scattered, throughout the desolate mountain ranges of the South Island are a few enterprising men who lead as hard,' as lonely and as adventurous a life as any,pioneers in the wildest outposts of civilisation. They are professional deer hunters. Pitching their tents under the very glaciers of the main range, their only contact with the world is when they ride in ;to the . backblock stations to renew their stores,- or when they share a mountain hut with a party of musterers, deer stalkers or mountaineers.

One of these men, engaged in shooting out the red deer, which have played such havoc with native . bush in the Mount j Algidus-Manuka Point district at the head of the Rakaia River, North Canterbury, described his isolated life to a representative of the "Dominion," then encamped at the Morraine Hut on the Mathias. Although by nature taciturn, as would be expected of one used to his own company, he nevertheless unbent over a dinner of grilled venison steak and billy tea, and described some of the hazards and discomforts of his arduous calling , . Only a Bare Living. "I shoot only for skins," lie explained. "The station owners pay me nothing, but from the Government I obtain a price varying from 2/ to 4/C for the cured.,skins. It's not much when you consider that I have to pay for my food, my, ammunition and my gear, and that to earn it I must stalk and skin the deer, carry the wet hide down the mountain on my back, cure it and dry it, pack it on horseback to the station, and have.it

transported thence to the city. You can guess that 1 make no more than a bare living. "But I like the life. I am up at the crack of dawn, and usually get half a dozen deer along the edge of the bush, whence the skine are easily brought in to the camp, By the time I have dealt with these the deer will have settled for the day on the sunny slopee. So I | usually manage a stalk during the afternoon, and get the skins to camp before dusk. I seldom fire at'single deer; having been shot at a great deal, the beasts j are very wild, and a single report will; eend every deer for miles into the dense bush. So unless I can knock over five or [ eix it's not worth while. Besides, when one has, to pack the skins down the | i mountainside on one's shoulders, it's best-to have them handy together, in-j I stead of one here and one there, all over j 1 the countryside. Each skin weighs from I twelve'to'twenty pounds, and I have carried as many as twelve skins over ; rough country. It's pretty hard work, but this is no job for a weakling. It takee a fit man to carry even his own j weight over these hills all day." j Dangers of the Life. Asked whether he was not afraid of illness, living alone beyond the reach of assistance, he said that his worst J danger was of a fall or mishap on the hillsides. "A man with a broken leg would be as good as dead, alone in j these hills," he said. "I had a reat: scare the other day, which has made me very careful. I was crossing a steep shingle-slip, with a ledge of rock above, when a noise . made me glance uphill. There had evidently been a couple of hinds asleep above the ledge. They had heard me or winded me, and in dashing away dislodged a boulder twice the size of a man's head. When I I looked up this rock was actually in mid-air, hurtling straight toward mo. I had just time to fling myself sideways, dropping my rifle, which went rattlhi" fifty yards downhill, luckily without exploding. It was a narrow I escape. i "But accidents are very rare. I go ! right up above the vegetation, on to I the glanders and the frozen snow Die ! only .time I was hurt was when I fell out of a tree, fixing my wireless aerial. The life has its compensations. One is in touch with Nature, if not with men The mountains have an attraction all their. own.",