TROLLING. 191 



than humane, conscientious sportsmen. I will give a scrap 

 of conversation that I overheard on the hotel veranda that 

 evening; the reader can then judge for himself and draw 

 his own conclusions. 



"Well, old man, what luck to-day?" 



" Bully ! I took in out of the wet a hundred and twenty- 

 five Bass, and would have had more but I lost all of my 

 spoons. Then I went ashore and shot three or four ' por- 

 kies ' with my pistol!" 



Now here was a bloody-minded butcher who was not con- 

 tent, with the help of his boatmen, with slaughtering over 

 a hundred Bass with the spoon, but who had the effrontery 

 and insolence to brag of it before gentlemen ; and to cap 

 the climax of his truculence he boasted of shooting several 

 innocent porcupines, a harmless, clumsy animal that can not 

 get out of one's way, and whose only means of defense is 

 to hump up its back and erect its quills ; an animal that a 

 sportsman never thinks of molesting. 



"Pshaw!" chimed in a young man, who with several 

 companions had been camping down the lake for a week, 

 " we shot nearly fifty in a week near our camp ; they 

 gnawed the axe-handle and chewed up a pair or two of 

 boots, and we started in to clean 'em out!" 



And these young men had probably time and again re- 

 sponded to the commandment, " Thou shalt not kill," with 

 " Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep 

 this law." 



Now, I do not pose as a saint, or a Christian, or as an 

 example, or as being any better than my fellows, for I am 

 not — but I do hold that the wanton killing of the meanest 

 creature is murder. At the same time, I can kill any ani- 

 mal — mammal, bird or fish — with clean hands and with a 



