Popular Science Monthly 567 



Shoot Your Deer from Horseback How a Young Woman of Kentucky 



with This Saddle Gun Rose to Great Heights 



IX the Southern part of 

 the United States 



game is sometimes shot 

 from horseback. Only 

 experienced hunters can 

 handle a horse and keep 

 a gun steady at the 

 same time. In order 

 that the "tenderfoots" 

 of a party may do some 

 of the shooting too, a 

 West Virginian has de- 

 \ised a saddle-mount 



r their guns. By its 



.cans a gun can be 

 -wept in almost any 

 position and steadied 

 until fired. 



This is accomplished, 



- the illustration shows, 

 Dy a treble-jointed 

 mounting. The first 

 joint is a swivel, allow- 

 ing the gun to be swept 

 horizontally. The sec- 

 r)nd, a ball-and-socket 



lint, permits motion in 

 a vertical direction. The 

 last of the joints enables 

 the entire gun to be 

 moved sidewise with 

 respect to the horse. 

 The ball-and-socket, of course, allows ver>' 

 fine adjustments to be easily made; so that 

 between the three joints, a gun can readily 

 be aimed in the exact direction that would 

 be required and held perfectly steady until 

 fired. 



) lot. Film Jjerv-. 



Her first job was paintmg seventy- 

 five smokestacks for a distilling 

 company. She did it practically 

 alone and in a satisfactory manner 



Three different joints on the 

 gun saddle enable the gun 

 to be swept in any direction 



i. ^ women, but nerve 

 for the men" was the un- 

 expressed distinction 

 drawn before the days of 

 the sufi'ragette and of 

 the great war. Although 

 the female of the species 

 may still scream at sight 

 of a mouse, she has 

 proved equal to so many 

 emergencies that it can 

 no longer be said that 

 "nerves" are her dis- 

 tinguishing characteris- 

 tic. 



A case in point is the 

 young Kentuckian in 

 the accompanying 

 photograph. She is 



Miss Mayme Pixley, 

 and she became a steeple- 

 jack by chance, not by 

 choice. Her father, 



who is the senior mem- 

 ber of the present 

 steeplejack partnership, 

 had a contract for paint- 

 ing seventh-five smoke- 

 stacks for a large dis- 

 tilling company, when 

 he fell and broke his leg. 

 The Pixleys felt that they could not afford 

 to lose that contract, so Mayme (we like the 

 Broadway spelling of her name) stepped 

 into the breach — or rather into the breeches 

 — and proved that she could wield a paint- 

 brush as efficiently at the top of a smoke- 

 stack as she could around the table-legs in 

 the kitchen. 



She finished all of the sevent>-five 

 stacks and received the full con- 

 tract price. That w as six years ago. 

 Mavme is still rising in the world 

 upon occasion, with her paint-pots 

 swinging beside her and her father 

 meeting her strokes on the opposite 

 side of the stacks. 



Although she does not claim to be 

 a "new woman" or to have very ad- 

 vanced ideas on the question of 

 woman's place in the world, Mayme 

 believes that a mere matter of skirts 

 should not be allowed to stand in 

 the way of work to be donQ if one 

 is able to do it. • ' 



