J? UN N ING- TIME. 113 



CHAPTER X. 



RUNNING-TIME. 



STILL-HUNTING is not a system of any special tricks 

 any more than sparring is. The art of self-defense 

 consists in the rapid, almost automatic, application of 

 a very few principles deeply founded in common- 

 sense. Any one knows that a quick blow is better 

 than a slow one; that a straight blow is better than a 

 curving one; that a slight parry that merely turns 

 aside an opponent's blow is quite as effective as one 

 that knocks it aside, and much more easy to make 

 quickly; that dodging a blow is often better than stop- 

 ping it; that the left hand can strike as hard and 

 quickly as the right, etc. etc. Yet, strangely enough, 

 a man left to himself falls naturally into the clumsy, 

 awkward methods of the rural boxer. And to get 

 him into the most natural, easy, and common-sense 

 way of striking, parrying, etc., requires an immense 

 amount of instruction and drilling. It is the same 

 with still-hunting. The trick part of it amounts to al- 

 most nothing. The principles are all natural, founded 

 in common-sense, and simple. You must first learn 

 what they are, and especially what they are not. Then 

 they must be followed until you follow them uncon- 

 sciously and become a bundle of good habits. 



We have now gone through all the leading princi- 

 ples involved in still-hunting in the woods before snow 

 falls. And many of these I have repeated even at the 



