Just to prove that rabbits and squirrels aren't safe when he's 

 within range, he set up a silhouette of a chipmunk, life size, forty 

 feet away, and put two successive shots into its head. He had a 

 man toss a quarter into the air fifteen feet away and hit it. Then 

 he had him toss up a penny, and hit that. 



A week later he went out with a photographer and leveled on 

 a squirrel jumping from one tree to another. He hit it in mid-air. 



It was on the slopes beyond the creek that rabbits first met up 

 with the sight of a boomerang whirling close to their long ears. 

 It was here too that ducks, rising from the creek, had a chance to 

 wonder whether the spinning weapons were being aimed at them 

 or were merely a strange species of bird. It was also here that a 

 hunter, stepping on a swamp hummock, pulled a leg muscle and 

 had to be carried from the field a form of assistance that no 

 small game needed. 



The word "boomerang" literally means "I go, but I return," 

 and because of this odd trait the greatest danger of the boom- 

 erang was to the hunters themselves. The wooden scythes never 

 returned precisely to their owners but always in the neighbor- 

 hood of one of the other hunters in the line. Thus, whenever the 

 cry of "Boomerang!" shattered the air, every hunter within 

 hearing distance dropped to a crouch and folded his hands over 

 his head, remembering that a Gerrish small-game boomerang 

 can sink its leading edge $/ inch into a cedar post at the outer 

 end of its flight. 



Carl Strang, Jack Ketchman, Fred Cook, and the other long- 

 bowmen had few good shots in the field, but proved their marks- 

 manship by pouring bolts into the chest area of a paper deer at 

 75 feet. Strang's bow, a lamination of Fiberglas, maple and 

 aluminum, is taped all over to prevent reflections that might 

 startle a deer. He even has a patch of sheepskin at the arrow 

 rest, so there'll be no rasping sound when the arrow is drawn 

 back. His steel tips with three cutting edges are filed to razorlike 

 sharpness. When he draws the bow back to the point where his 

 thumb meets the corner of his mouth, he is exerting power 

 enough to lift a 57-pound package. 



The crossbow also went to the party, but because of a law 



222 



