The Turnbo Manuscripts

by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925


Turnbo Home | Table of Contents | Keyword Search| Bibliography | Biography


HUNG BY THE HORNS
By S. C. Turnbo

An incident relating to two antlered monarchs being found locked by the horns on Lick Creek, a tributary stream of Big North Fork, might be of some interest to the reader and we give it here as told me by Fred Graham, who informed me that one day during the latter fifties while he and one of his sons were passing along the creek in an ox wagon, and when near 4 miles above where the town of Gainesville is, he noticed a deer jumping around with its head down. The tall grass prevented him from seeing its head. The actions of the deer was singular and he halted the oxen and walked toward the animal to see if anything was wrong with it and found that it was a buck with its horns fast to another buck which was dead. It was evident that they had fought several days before I discovered them and one had died and the live one had pulled it over the rough ground until the hair on the dead deer’s side next to the ground was nearly all rubbed off. The surviving buck had dragged its dead enemy until it was completely exhausted and was too weak to go any further. It was the worst famished looking deer I ever saw and I cut its throat to end its miserable condition and sad misfortune. The one we found alive carried 7 prongs to each beam and the dead one 15 points to each beam which was a total of 44 points. I drove the wagon up to where the dead bucks lay and we put them in the wagon box and hauled them home and severed the heads from the bodies and hung the heads up where we left them several months and then I sent the heads and interlocked horns by George Ruth to Alex Sears who lived in Kansas," said Mr. Graham.

Next Story


Turnbo Home | Table of Contents | Keyword Search| Bibliography | Biography


Springfield-Greene County Library