BIG GAME SHOOTING 19 



the shot seems difficult." Get a good rifle, a repeater, 

 of course. Shoot much at marks — both stationary and 

 moving, before going to the woods and when you see 

 your first head of big game you will no doubt do as 

 I did, and as many have done before, gaze at it for a 

 fatal moment and forget about the rifle. You will be 

 lucky if you do not often have the ague — the buck 

 kind, called buck fever in the woods. The sure cure 

 for this is killing a buck, but most likely you must be 

 cured before you can get the buck. Experience here, 

 as in all shooting, is most important. By all means do 

 not get excited and shoot before you know what you 

 are shooting at. Ever since the English king lost his 

 life by a quarrel, shot from a cross-bow at a deer, the 

 fatalities in the shooting-field have been on the in- 

 crease. The fools who shoot at everything which they 

 think may be a deer, unfortunately, seem to shoot well 

 when the object is a man, and the result has been that 

 each season we read of many hunters being killed in 

 the Adirondacks, the Maine forests and elsewhere by 

 accident. So careless have the shooters become that 

 one State, at least, has taken notice of it, and in Maine 

 it is now a felony to shoot a hunter carelessly, and the 

 penalty is a $1,000 fine and imprisonment"'^ besides, if I 

 remember the law correctly. Captain Lewis, one of the 

 famous " Lewis and Clark " explorers, was carelessly 

 shot by one of his men, who mistook him for an elk ; but 

 such accidents can always be avoided if the shooter 

 does not shoot until he knows what he is shooting at. 

 The conduct of Colonel Dodge, when he doubted the 

 correctness of his orderly's vision when llic latter 



* The imprisonment may be for ten years. 



