366 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



conscious to a degree, and so with some remarks about 

 the newspapers having told the whole Kansas story, and 

 perhaps a little more, I said: 



"Our host, Porter, would, I know, rather hear of my 

 hunting and trapping experiences than about jayhawk- 

 ing, as they call it, so I will tell him how I lost a hat on 

 a hunting trip. It was not a valuable hat; just one of 

 the kind that you see in rural villages a hat that under 

 no conditions could ever have been a new one. You 

 know the kind; they were never created by man, but 

 have the air of having always existed. If I cared to par- 

 aphrase Byron I would say: 



'I had a hat which was not all a hat, 

 Part of the brim was gone, etc.* 



"These details are necessary when you tell about a 

 hat, for its shape, texture and color are all that comprise 

 individuality in a hat. Its texture was felt, and its shape 

 was not like the shiny 'nail keg' which adorns the brow 

 of a member of Assembly when he comes to Albany; its 

 color, if it had any, is beyond my power to describe. The 

 sun had toyed with its hues until it had attained that 

 delicate shade of old-mown hay seen on the chin whiskers 

 of the member from Sqeedunk. 



"That's the best description I can give of the hat. It 

 was a rare day in autumn; you know how the hills and 

 the maples looked; I won't go into that because I didn't 

 lose them; they get around every year. 



"I had a new turkey call, a sort of small box with a 

 thin cover that said 'keouk' when you tickled it, and the 

 turkeys were wild in Kansas, wilder than deer, and an 

 old gobbler that had been shot at once or twice took no 

 chances. I found a place to lie in the leaves behind a 



