Since it was now the first week of March, the snow could be expected to settle considerably within a fortnight.
I think it was the eighteenth of the month when Jotham and four other men finally went to get the oxen.

They took a gun, with the intention of shooting one or more of the deer.

A disagreeable surprise awaited them at the yard.
At that time--it was before the days of game wardens--what were known as "meat-and-hide hunters" often came down over the boundary from Canada and slaughtered moose and deer while the animals were snow-bound.

The lawless poachers frequently came in parties and sometimes searched the woods for twenty or thirty miles below the Line in quest of yards.
Apparently such a raiding party had found Willis's yard and had shot not only the six deer and moose but Jotham's oxen as well.

Blood on the snow and refuse where the animals had been hung up for skinning and dressing, made what had happened only too plain.
Poor Jotham came home much cast down.