FOR more than a hundred years the old Ameri- 

 can rifle held its own, the small-bore, muzzle- 

 loading squirrel rifle, with its little round 

 bullet and its heavy, long barrel. Our early fron- 

 tiersmen managed to kill turkey, bear, deer even 

 elk and buffalo with it. With such a rifle the 

 writer's father killed his buffalo on the Platte Valley 

 in 1 86 1. Today we should not feel safe with such 

 a weapon in any country where the chipmunks were 

 in the least disposed to be cross. We should feel 

 pretty much the same way about the old .44 repeat- 

 ing rifle, the first of its kind, which really killed 

 more game than all the rifles ever made since that 

 model came on the market because game abounded 

 in its day. Times certainly have changed in fire- 

 arms. It is a long step from the squirrel rifle of 

 Bunker Hill to the 42 centimeter howitzers which 

 did their work across the water. 



No doubt you remember reading as a boy the 

 books of the first African big-game hunters Grant, 



149 



