FROM THE GAME FIELDS. 



359 



ical Parks and Gardens be supplied? 

 Would you deny the Eastern people the 

 right of ever seeing an elk, a mule deer, 

 an antelope or a mountain sheep? Of 

 course this question does not refer to peo- 

 ple who are able to go West and hunt; but 

 there are hundreds of thousands of poor 

 people in the East who are in need of just 

 such education as is furnished by the Zo- 

 ological parks, and the great game pre- 

 serves like Litchfield's and Corbin's. 



As to the men who catch the game alive 

 and then butcher and sell it, they should be 

 arrested and fined, just as all game law vio- 

 lators should. 



Mr. Stone is collecting specimens for 

 Recreation's museum, for the agricultural 

 Department at Washington, and for the 

 American Museum of Natural History, of 

 this city. Do you deny the right of scien- 

 tific institutions like these, to send out men 

 to collect specimens? The Government 

 has had collectors out in nearly all parts 

 of the world, for the last 25 years, and I 

 have never before heard of anyone's object- 

 ing to it. 



The American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, the Field Columbian Museum, and 

 some hundreds of other scientific societies, 

 colleges, etc., send out collectors every 

 year, not only to the Western U. S., but to 

 other countries, and in this way collections 

 of great educational and scientific value are 

 being made up and placed before the peo- 

 ple everywhere. Is it not well that speci- 

 mens of the American birds and mam- 

 mals should be thus preserved before the 

 game hogs kill them all? 



I am opposed to any and all unnecessary 

 destruction of game and to any violation 

 of game laws at any time; but am in favor 

 of giving the public at large every possible 

 opportunity to know and study our Amer- 

 ican fauna, if only in game parks and muse- 

 ums. — Editor. 



HOW I GOT MY BUCK. 



Stillwater, Minn. 



I, with 4 friends, was in Mille Lacs county, 

 last fall, hunting deer. We found but few 

 where 3 years ago they were plentiful. Dur- 

 ing the winter of '96-97, there was a heavy 

 fall of snow. It was then the Indians, the 

 pot hdnters and the game hogs, were in 

 their glory. Some of them shot as many as 

 8 or 9 deer in one day, and others, to save 

 ammunition, killed deer with clubs. 



During our hunt we shot 2 deer. One, 

 a small buck, I was lucky enough to kill. 



For 3 or 4 days I had promised every 

 morning to kill a deer that day, and had 

 been daily jollied for not keeping my agree- 

 ment. On this eventful day Smith and I 

 started for a long tramp. 



Smith parried a .44-40 Marlin, and I a 

 .30-30 Winchester. We had gone about 4 

 miles when my companion, who was in ad- 



vance, beckoned me to him, and said he 

 had seen a deer in a thicket just ahead. 



Both being inexperienced deer hunters, 

 we held a council of war. It was decided 

 I should go to the other side of the thicket, 

 and, after giving me 20 minutes to get 

 around, Smith was to go through and drive 

 the deer to me. 



I went around, and climbed to the top of 

 a tangle of logs, about 15 feet from the 

 ground. I had waited perhaps 5 minutes, 

 when I heard my friend's rifle. A moment 

 later I saw the deer, about 300 yards away, 

 running from me. I fired, and must have 

 struck a tree ahead of him, for he turned 

 and ran toward me. When within 100 yards, 

 he turned at right angles to cross a wide 

 windfall of dead trees and tall grass. Here 

 Smith's gun began to speak again ? and the 

 way he pumped the lever was surprising. 



Then I remembered I had a gun and was 

 hunting deer also, and I began to do my 

 share of the pumping, watching for the deer 

 to fall at every shot. I have a faint remem- 

 brance of feeling in my pockets for more 

 cartridges, and of becoming aware that the 

 rifle barrel was uncomfortably warm. All 

 of a sudden the buck stopped, not to sink 

 down and die, as he should have done, but 

 probably to locate the source of all the noise. 

 That was my chance. I estimated the dis- 

 tance as 225 yards, and knowing the shoot- 

 ing qualities of my .30 I held at the top of 

 his neck. 



I must have had a severe attack of the, 

 wobbles about that time. My heart beat 

 like a sledge hammer and my knees cracked 

 together, while the sights on my rifle played 

 leap frog. Finally I managed to pull the 

 trigger, and the buck ambled slowly across 

 the windfall toward a ridge a few hundred 

 yards away. He reached a small patch of 

 brush and stopped before crossing the ridge. 

 By that time I had passed the acute stage of 

 my disease, and felt a great longing to get 

 to the ridge before the buck did. I am not 

 much of a runner ordinarily, but I went 

 down the edge of that windfall, jumping 

 over logs and stumps, at a speed that would 

 make a comet dizzy. 



When I got where I supposed the buck 

 was, I heard Smith's rifle crack twice in 

 quick succession. At the same instant out 

 jumped the deer within 30 feet of me. He 

 went slowly and seemed dazed. Just as he 

 was going behind a large stump, I fired, and 

 he fell dead. Smith came up and we looked 

 for bullet holes in the deer. 



We found he was shot through the wind- 

 pipe, probably when I fired while he was 

 standing still. The only other place he was 

 hit was just below the back bone, near the 

 hind quarters. We were 4 miles from camp 

 and had 100 pounds of venison to carry, 

 across a wilderness of fallen logs. It was 

 late in the day when we reached camp with 

 our load. Walter Scott. 



