FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS . 85 



CHAPTEE XIV 



THE KEEPER (continued) 



Is there no way, then, you may ask, in which 

 the head-keeper may be lured from his customary 

 silence for more than a sentence or two? Yes, 

 there is one absolutely certain method, and, so far 

 as I know, only one. The subject to w 7 hich you 

 must lead your conversation is no, it isn't 

 poachers, for a good keeper takes the occasional 

 poacher as part of his programme. He wages 

 war against him, of course ; and, if his shooting 

 happens to be situated near a town of some impor- 

 tance, the war is often a very sanguinary one, only 

 ended by the extermination (according to Assize- 

 Court methods) of the poachers. But the keeper, 

 as I say, takes all this as a matter of course. He 

 recognises that poachers, after all, are men ; as a 

 sportsman, he must have a sneaking sympathy for 

 one whose science and wood-craft often baffle his 

 own ; and, therefore, though he fights against him 



