HUNTERS WHO HAVii: BU.CKFEVERED 

 Goose Island camp and returned to our camp 

 in the evening, but t always remembered my 

 poor shooting as well as the good. We moral- 

 ized on the question; was it a fault of the guns 

 or had the hunters an attack of the buck fever 

 or was it Providence or chance or did the guns 

 have spasms that governed in this case is 

 something that I could not quite understand. 

 For never before in all my long hunting experi- 

 ence have I seen such shooting as was done on 

 this hunt. I have witnessed many remarkable 

 shots. Geese and ducks have been pulled down 

 out of the sky. Deer have been shot and killed 

 a fourth of a mile away and many other mira- 

 culous shots made. I saw Father shoot and 

 kill a hoot-owl one night about nine-thirty when 

 it was so dark that you could not see the tree 

 that the owl was in. A big hoot-owl had lit in 

 a big oak tree near the cabin and commenced 

 to hoot "who-are-you." Father took down the 

 old squirrel rifle and shot in the direction from 

 which the sound came. At the crack of the 



83 



