BRANT SHOOTING 285 



the — well, "Hades." Song, story and jest held high 

 carnival. Dull care was banished and his woeful face 

 never permitted to enter the portals of the old club- 

 house so long as we held possession. For one week 

 at least he was a stranger, a melancholy tramp, job- 

 less and with no abiding-place on the sands of Mono- 

 moy Island or the waters thereof. 



"Hello! there's branters," said a native of Cape 

 Cod, as we left the little, mixed freight and passenger 

 train at Chatham, Mass., on an early April morning. 

 " There be nine on 'em," he said, counting our noses 

 by mental arithmetic ; and he was right. There were 

 nine of us, with guns, woolen clothes, rubber clothes, 

 canvas clothes, oil clothes, leather boots, rubber boots, 

 rubber hats, crates of onions, boxes of loaded shells, 

 cases of canned goods, together with mysterious look- 

 ing "stun jugs " and " sich." 



Nine of us — from Boston, Worcester, Quincy, Dor- 

 chester, Florida and Philadelphia — all drawn together 

 by the Freemasonry of sport, and the shibboleth was 

 " Brant." The day before I left home I told a promi- 

 nent merchant that I was going shooting for a short 

 time. He asked what I expected to shoot at this time 

 o' year. " Brant," I replied. 



" Well," he said, " when I was a boy I used to shoot 

 squirrels with a rifle, and became so expert that I 

 could shoot them back of the head every time." 



How far back he didn't say. 



