STEPHEN MARTIN. 



TRAP AND RIFLE SHOOTING THE WAR CLOUD. 



STEVE was a different sort of fellow from any of the 

 boys of whom I have written. He came into our 

 boyish set after we went across the river to live, 

 and I naturally dropped into Scott's occasionally by day, 

 but frequently in the evenings. W. J. & R. H. Scott 

 made, sold and repaired guns on Beaver street, between 

 Broadway and Green street, and after their rival poor 

 Steve Van Valkenburgh died, theirs was the only place 

 of the kind in Albany. Gunners of all kinds had busi- 

 ness there, and every evening a few could be found in 

 the salesroom discussing all kinds of questions pertain- 

 ing to guns, their proper loads and powers, as well as tell- 

 ing their personal experiences while trying to conceal 

 the exact location of a bit of snipe bog or partridge 

 cover. 



We boys soon got acquainted it never takes boys 

 long to do that, especially if they have a common interest 

 in anything. Martin was one that dropped in there, and 

 as he was about the age of our party he went with us 

 on a fishing trip to Normanskill, a brook which rises 

 somewhere off toward the Helderbergs and enters the 

 Hudson a few miles below Albany. We called it the 

 Normanskill Creek in ignorance that "kill" was Dutch 

 for creek, and that the added word was a repetition, but 

 then what would you do with Kaaterskill, anglicized into 



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