KINKS O'F ALL KINDS 



87 



saved by no other remedies than 

 the onion poultice and whisky. 

 One of these was a man of 76, 

 the other was a boy of 12. 



THE TIN CAN RANGE 

 PHONE 



BY E. A. CROLINS 



I think it best at first to give 

 you a little history of ourselvep 

 to show how the kink herein de- 

 scribed was developed. 



Several members of the Fort 

 Dearborn Rifle Club of Chicago, 

 including myself, have been going 

 out Sunday mornings for outdoor 

 practice. As the club at present 

 has only an indoor range, we 

 have selected a good place along 

 the banks of the Chicago Drain- 

 age Canal, just west of Argo, 111. 

 Argo is a small town southwest 

 of Chicago and can be reached on 

 the street car from where we live 

 in about 45 minutes. We are then 

 compelled to walk about a mile to 

 the range. 



Anybody living in Chicago will 

 know that hills suitable for target 

 butts are scarcer than hens' teeth 

 in this vicinity. The spot which 

 we have been using all summer 

 is ideal as a range, owing to the 

 fact that the engineers, when 

 building the canal, obligingly left 

 miniature mountains of clay and 

 limestone about 25 to 30 feet high 

 along the banks of the canal. 

 These make a fine backstop for 

 even the wildest shot. 



As there is no habitation or any 

 place to keep equipment near our 

 range, we are obliged to carry all 



the necessary articles with us, 

 which means pack them about a 

 mile. We have overcome this 

 handicap very nicely as follows : 



Last spring we carried a couple 

 of two-by-fours, three feet long, 

 and a board twelve inches wide, 

 one inch thick and three feet' 

 long, out with us on our first trip. 

 This lumber nailed together, using 

 the two-by-fours for legs and 

 sharpening same, makes a good 

 arrangement to hold our targets. 

 We simply drive the pointed up- 

 rights into the ground. When we 

 are through we pull the whole 

 thing up and hide it under some 

 near-by shrubs until the next 

 time. The rest of our equipment 

 consists of some paper targets and 

 thumb tacks. 



Our rifles are .22 caliber and we 

 use long rifle Lesmok or semi- 

 smokeless ammunition. We shoot 

 at 50 and 100 yards. Right here 

 I wish to state that the .22 long 

 rifle cartridge is exceedingly ac- 

 curate even at 100 yards, and will 

 penetrate our one-inch pine board 

 at that distance and never even 

 hesitate. I think that is pretty 

 good for a .22, don't you? 



Thus endeth our history. Now 

 for the kink. 



This fall the weather has been 

 very windy, and we found it diffi- 

 cult and sometimes impossible to 

 shout loud enough to call the shots 

 from the target to the firing point, 

 even with the assistance of a 

 small megaphone. 



One windy day, after all of us 

 had strained our lungs while tend- 

 ing target, I began to figure out 



