210 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



as apt to kill stock as to kill a deer. But fire hunting 

 from a boat, or jacking, as it is called, though it entails 

 absolutely no skill in the hunter, and though it is, and 

 ought to be, forbidden, as it can best be carried on at 

 the season when nursing does are particularly apt to be 

 the victims, nevertheless has a certain charm of its own. 

 The first deer I ever killed, when a boy, was obtained 

 in this way, and I have always been glad to have had 

 the experience, though I have never been willing to 

 repeat it. I was at the time camped out in the Adiron- 

 dacks. 



Two or three of us, all boys of fifteen or sixteen, had 

 been enjoying what was practically our first experience 

 in camping out, having gone out with two guides, Hank 

 Martin and Mose Sawyer, from Paul Smith's on Lake 

 St. Regis. My brother and cousin were fond of fishing 

 and I was not, so I was deputed to try to bring in a 

 deer. I had a double-barrelled i2-bore gun, French pin- 

 fire, with which I had industriously collected " speci- 

 mens " on a trip to Egypt and Palestine and on Long 

 Island; except for three or four enthralling but not over- 

 successful days after woodcock and quail, I had done 

 no game shooting. As to every healthy boy with a taste 

 for out-door life, the Northern forests were to me a veri- 

 table land of enchantment. We were encamped by a 

 stream among the tall pines, and I had enjoyed every- 

 thing; poling and paddling the boat, tramping through 

 the woods, the cries of chickaree and chipmunk, of jay, 

 woodpecker, chickadee, nuthatch, and cross-bill, which 

 broke the forest stillness; and, above all, the great reaches 



