
FROM THE GAME FIELDS. 117 
hounds were there early and, though the 
wind was blowing a gale, quite a number 
of people in carriages and on horseback 
were there to see the fun. Two dogs were 
matched for the first run. Two men, 
mounted on ponies then dragged a long 
rope over the grass and soon started a 
jack rabbit. Off he went with the dogs 
after him, over ditches, fields, and fences, 
every one following for 2 miles. 
Another pair of dogs were selected, and 
another exciting chase followed. Digni- 
fied business and professional men drove, 
rode and yelled like school boys. At noon 
we lunched, hunted persimmons and then 
off to the chase again. Run followed run 
until evening drove us home with the re- 
membrance of a day of sport that will fur- 
nish us many a laugh amid the realities of 
every day existence. 
Nettie. B., Oklahoma City, Okla. 

A LABORING MAN’S PLEA. 
Cheboygan, Wis. 
Editor REcREATION: I have read many 
sportsmen’s journals, but have never seen 
anything in their columns from the labor- 
ing man’s standpoint. Apparently he has 
but little sport, or no time to tell of it, and 
those who do write for such journals do not 
often think of the poor man. 
We cannot go to far off lakes to slaugh- 
_ter ducks, and must content ourselves with 
a few which we can catch along our rivers 
near home. Lo, if we do this, we are Sun- 
day desecrators, pot-hunters, etc. 
But the so-called gentlemen! Why, bless 
them, they need recreation and must have 
it, spring and fall. These shoot all they 
can reach, and then leave them to rot. 
Yes, to rot! And then they brag about it. 
Gentlemen? Are they? 
They are our leading sportsmen; bankers, 
counter-jumpers, business men, out for 
recreation. 
The factory hand needs no recreation. 
His happy lot is to toil year after year, for a 
daily pittance which will barely support his 
family in the cheapest way, leaving no 
margin for recreation for any of them. 
And if, by chance, one such should disclose 
his discontent his murmur meets the sneer, 
“You've no business with a family if you 
can’t provide comfortably for them.” Love 
and home are for the rich, toil and: loneli- 
ness for the poor! 
However, we are to help pay for protec- 
tion for the rich man’s game, just as we 
pay for all his other luxuries. 
I have a yellow pointer. With him to 
help Jake and I have sometimes killed a 
few woodcock, on Sundays, which we could 
sell at 45 cents and 50 cents each, buying 
meat with the money, sometimes earning 
enough on Sunday to keep the wives and 
littie ones in meat for a week. For this we 
are dubbed pot-hunters! 
Do our sportsmen who shoot ducks in 
the spring do so for meat or merely for 
sport? Which works the greater harm, the 
individual hunter who kills a few on Sun- 
day, or the swarm of gunners who throng 
the lakes in spring? 
Henry Zurheide. 

A REPLY TO MR. ROCK. 
In January RECREATION I got an unfair 
SCOmleninome ie We inock: Ol leakes lidar 
have never been on good terms with Rock. 
When he and his outfit came to Lake I 
had been there 6 years and game was abun- 
dant. The first year he was there Rock sold 
65 cow elk to Gillman, of Sawtell, besides 
over 100 antelope and deer and 8rams. He 
also sold every spring for 10 years a 4 horse 
wagon load of hides and horns. Once 
when the Park officers were after him he 
loaded a wagon with buffalo heads and left 
thembakevat 2.a-t0d: 
His statement that “ the catching of game 
tends to its preservation rather than ex- 
termination’’ is all bosh. He knows as 
well as I that game catchers cause the death 
of 5 animals for each one they take alive. 
It is true I have killed 100 rams on the 
Madison range, but I was 14 years in doing 
it, and sheep are as thick to-day on the 
range as they ever were. If you wish to in- 
quire which of us bears the best reputation 
as a hunter, I will send you names of men 
who have known both Rock and I for years. 
M. P. Dunham, Woodworth, Mont. 

HE DIED HARD. 
Most hunters agree that a quartering shot 
lengthwise through the body will stop any 
animal at once. I want to tell of one ex- 
ception. I was hunting with W. L. Wine- 
gar, of Egin, Idaho. 
We struck the track of a small band of 
elk. When we came up with them they 
were in a small grove of pines. They ran 
out over a bald knob, 125 yards distant. 
The old bull came out last; I waited for 
him and fired at his shoulder. I saw it 
jerk, but he went on apparently sound. 
We followed him about 2 miles and he 
stopped 3 times to lie down. At last I 
shot him through the heart, when he sank 
immediately. 
On dressing him we found the first bullet, 
a 300 gr. .45-90, had broken the shoulder 
blade, turned back and passed through the 
thoracic and abdominal cavities, severing 
the intestines in several places, so that the 
abdomen was filled with blood and in- 
testinal contents. Some elk, like some cats, 
take a great deal of killing. 
Hamilton Vreeland, Jersey City, N. J. 

SOME DENVER DUCK EXTERMINATORS. 
A Denver paper recently printed a story 
of spring duck shooting in that vicinity, 
