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WALKING AFTER LEW CHAPIN 
David and Goliath on a Prairie Chicken Hunt 
BY ERNEST McGAFFEY 
Author of 
HE season for prairie 
chicken - shooting  be- 
gan on September 1. 
A few days prior to 
that two men _ were 
talking in a down- 
town office of one of 
thelarge Western cities. 
The taller of the two, a man about forty 
years of age, sinewy, bearded and keen- 
eyed, was speaking. 
““You’ve shot chickens, eh?” 
“Hundreds of them,” was the response. 
“Well, you can understand that I don’t 
want to make a fluke out of this. He’s 
sharp, and if a man hasn’t hunted any he’d 
catch on quicker’n a wink.” 
“There won’t be any fluke so far as that 
is concerned,” replied his companion, a 
medium-sized, blonde, and light-built figure 
ofaman. ‘I hunted chickens when I was 
a boy, and I’ve hunted every kind of small 
game in the United States. I’ve shot ’em 
right here in this State by the score, and 

‘* Poems of the Gun and Rod,” ‘‘ Poems of the Town,” “ 
Cosmos,” etc. 
know their habits like a book. What! 
bright and early at break of day at the edge 
of the stubbles, all day in the corn-fields or 
along the edges of the osage orange hedges, 
or maybe a piece of luck by coming across 
a covey in a clover pasture in the daytime 
hunting grasshoppers. In the evening, just 
before dark, creeping out of the corn onto 
the stubbles again. How does that jibe 
with your experience ?” 
“Say,” said the tall man, ‘‘that sounds 
according to Hoyle, all right. Well, it’ll be 
fifty dollars for the three days, and I know 
you can do the trick so far as the other 
angle of the game goes.” 
“What about the rest of the party?” 
queried the smaller man. 
‘““They don’t know a syllable. I don’t 
want them to. You’re just my friend 
Winters, on from the East.”’ 
‘All right,” was the answer. ‘‘I’ll meet 
you and your party at the depot, and I'll 
bring a chicken dog that’s'a dandy, too.” 
“Good boy,” was the tall man’s enthusi- 
