92 WITH GUN AND GUIDE 



In both cases, however, I had clearly and cleanly 

 overshot the quarry, and that was all that could be said 

 about it. 



Some ten days afterward, when I was at my camp 

 in Maine, a companion sportsman, who was making his 

 first hunting trip to the Maine woods, for an hour or so 

 carried my rifle, while I carried his, which was much 

 lighter. 



We had a hard tramp of several miles and when we 

 reached the objective point of our trip a newly dis- 

 covered dead-water I made a fire and was boiling 

 some water, while he was carelessly examining my rifle. 

 He casually remarked to me : " I see you carry your 

 rifle with the sight elevated at a hundred yards." I 

 made some passing remark in answer, but thought no 

 more about it, until after he had left for home, and one 

 night when I was lying out at an upper dam, his re- 

 mark came back to me, and I looked at the sights and 

 found they were set for an elevation of two hundred 

 yards. 



Then I knew why I had made two such shameful 

 misses. I have always made it a practice to keep 

 my sights at zero, and to elevate when necessity re- 

 quired me to do so. For three weeks before my de- 

 parture for New Brunswick, the rifle had been stand- 

 ing in my office uncovered, and my theory is that some 

 employee had innocently tampered with the sights, 

 elevated them, and then set the rifle down, and as the 



