3H 



RECREATION. 



SOME TELLING SHOTS. 



Lowell, Me. 



Editor Recreation 



I notice in the February number of Recrea- 

 tion an article by Dr. J. N. Hall. His points 

 are interesting and correct about shooting big 

 game. A hunter of experience knows where to 

 place the ball, when the game stands out so it 

 can be seen. Last fall I was hunting with a 

 sportsman from Providence, R. I. We were 

 looking principally for moose. My guest had 

 had some experience among elk and bears in the 

 west. The first day out we saw a caribou stand- 

 ing side to, on the ice on a brook. As I did not 

 know how good a shot the sportsman was, I 

 brought my rifle to bear and waited until I heard 

 his report, then pulled. The caribou fell, and 

 on examination we found one ball had gone 

 through his shoulders and one had broken his 

 back. We went a short distance and saw another 

 caribou coming, head on. He fired and broke 

 the caribou's neck. 



Then we cruised a while, seeing plenty of 

 signs of moose and caribou, but the snow had 

 melted so that there were many spots of bare 

 ground, which made it difficult to follow game. 

 We got on the trail of three or four moose, but 

 found they were going with the wind. I told my 

 guest that we had better not follow them until a 

 more favorable time, so we started back toward 

 camp. It was some four miles to camp, but we 

 had not gone far when we saw fresh moose 

 tracks on some patches of snow. The snow was 

 soft and still melting, and we could see that the 

 tracks had been made not over ten minutes be- 

 fore. We stopped to look about and listen, and 

 Mr. B. said he saw a glimpse of some animal 

 moving. 



Just then I saw a big bull passing an open 

 place, and stopped him by shouting, " Who's 

 there." I again brought up my rifle and held 

 fire until I heard Mr. B.'s rifle. The moose 

 went out of sight the first jump, but we soon 

 heard a terrible crash. I told Mr. B. that the 

 crash was of the right kind. We went .about 10 

 rods from where the moose stood when we fired, 

 and found him dead He had fallen on a small, 

 dead tree and broken it. We found one ball had 

 made a slit in his heart, and the other had 

 passed within two inches of it. 



We dressed him and returned to camp, where 

 we joined the rest of our party. There were six 

 of us — three sportsmen and three guides, my 

 grandson being one of the latter. He was in 

 plain hearing of us that day, with his employer, 

 and we were the last to camp that evening. 



Soon as we arrived, they began to question us 

 about what we had killed. We at first told them 

 nothing, but there were no other parties in 

 this section. My grandson said he heard two 

 shots together, twice, during the day, and had 

 told the others that something was dead ; " for," 

 said he, " that old Bullard rifle of grandfather's 

 hasn't gone off twice without something being 

 killed. We finally told them of our day's hunt. 



A rain storm that night took off what little snow 

 there was. and we had to hunt on bare, frozen 

 ground the rest of the time, but managed so the 

 party killed one moose, ten caribou and five deer. 



Jock Darling. 



