166 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
March 2, 1895. 
Sportsmen's Exposition. 
May 13 to 18. Ma dison Square Garden, New York.— First annual 
Sportsmen's Exposition. 
A SINGLE SHOT. 
"Come Beau, old dog! how are your stiff, rheumatic 
legs this bracing September morning?' I called to the 
nine year old liver and white pointer, as he lay on his side 
in the sun, slowly and laboriously stretching himself, a 
result of the previous day's hunt. 
"Do you feel like giving them another bout to-day?" 
For reply, the old thoroughbred speedily found his feet 
and nearly upset me in his gambols and efforts to lick my 
face. 
"That will do, old dog. I knew it was idle to ask you, 
for you would go while you could stand, and, as you are 
agreeable, we will do our best to get that old grouse of 
the alder patch, which has cost me so many scratches 
and barked shins searching after hirn, and which has 
fooled us so often in coming out just where we were not. " 
So, picking up my cylinder Parker 12-bore, 6 1-4 
pounds, we two fast friends left Rye Beach, New Hamp- 
shire, on that perfect morning, such a one as only that 
lovely resort can boast. We made across the stony fields 
for the cover of the native's "partridge," but my own 
dearest foe, the ruffed grouse. 
At that season the trees are still in full leaf, and the 
hunting of the much-hunted grouse is not the tame affair 
it is in Maine or sections where their tameness at times 
encourages pistol practice at their heads, but it takes a 
past grand master of the guild to bring down the hurtling 
meteor of the woods, in the yard or two only of the 
glimpse he allows you to get of him. 
Beau and I, in our many hunts of him, have mutually 
agreed that entirely too frequently he was one too many 
for us. The dog was seven years old when I began to 
hunt him, and his training in the field had been nothing, 
so that I despaired of teaching the "tricks" to a dog so 
old. But his strain was fine, and what he lacked in ac- 
complishments he made up for in a way that only "blood 
will tell"; hence he was sadly handicapped in his en- 
counters with this cunning ruffed grouse. 
The bird we were especially after that day, "used" in a 
dense alder thicket, so heavy with undergrowth it was 
impossible to keep the dog in sight. On half a dozen 
previous days the welcome roar of his wings alone told 
me that he was there, or had been; for he stood not on 
the order of his going, and I never could get a sight of the 
color of his feathers. 
The last time I came around the alders, I noticed a 
small clearing adjacent to them, and leading up into the 
woods — a tongue, as it were, about 40 yards wide — and I 
said to myself, "Old fellow, I believe you come out 
through here, and as I have always entered the. alders on 
the opposite side, the trick was yours. We'll see what 
Beau and I can do with you the next time." 
When we reached the woods, the dog soon limbered up, 
and had his hunting cap on, poor old fellow! he always 
wore it very jauntily so long as the flesh was willing, but 
it was not so strong as his spirit. Thereon he raised noth- 
ing, and as I had made a detour through the woods to 
come out at the upper end of my new-found clearing, I 
called him in to me. 
"Beau, old dog, we've got a tough customer to deal 
with. This bird has fooled us so often ; I reckon he thinks 
we are a pair of chumps." 
The doer's big, brown eyes rested on mine as if to say, 
"I'm ready for him," but still the uncertain wag of his 
tail proclamed a certain spice of uncertainty. 
Moving up to about twenty yards or so of the alders, so 
I could command a view over their tops, right in the cen- 
tre of the little clearing I sent the dog in, and taking a 
firm grip of my Parker, I awaited developments. 
For what seemed ages, so keen was I to bag that par- 
ticular bird, I could hear the dog working in through the 
undergrowth, and I knew it would soon be pretty warm 
for old Mr. Grouse if he was putting up there that morn- 
ing. 
On a sudden, the noise the dog was making ceased. 
Firmer still I grip myjgun and brace myself for the ex- 
pected. 
Yes, he's there, and as the welcome sound of his "rise" 
caught my ear, every sense and nerve was alert. Eagerly 
I scan the tops of the alders. For one instant he seems 
stationary in the air as he shot into view, balancing in 
his turn to get his line of flight, then bore down on me 
not fifteen yards high. What a royal bird he is! Now or 
never! With an effort when I first saw him, I pulled my- 
self together. Calmly, now, my gun covers him and fol- 
lows his flight until I judge he is past me sufficiently to 
make a fine driving shot. As I press the trigger and see 
him give way in his fall, while the smoke lifting reveals 
the welcome cloud of fine down floating off on the air, 
only those who have done likewise know how I felt. 
As I slip another shell in, the old dog comes running 
up, both eyes an interrogation point. Did you gst him? 
"You bet I did, thanks to you , old fell low." 
Together we find him, for Beau is no retriever. As I 
smooth down his broad, brown back and place his black, 
velvety collar in place, I stow him away in my pocket 
with the remark, "You tried it once too. often, my 
beauty." J. L. B. 
Sportsmen as Epicures- 
Editor Forest and Stream- 
As it is generally - admitted that game of all kinds is 
yearly becoming more scarce, even to the extent of ex- 
termination, and many of my fellow sportsnten are pub- 
lishing theories as to the cause, I wish to be permitted to 
express, through the columns of Forest and Stream, my 
vip.ws on the subject. 
The present condition of affairs is attributed by some 
persons to the forest fires, by others to the severe winters; 
some say it is caused by game-destroying vermin; the 
poacher is blamed for it, and many persons believe that it 
is due to pot-hunting. But while I agree that all of 
these causes contribute more or less to the general result, 
I believe that the scarcity of game is to a great extent due 
to the selfishness of sportsmen. 4 
dojiot contend ^that the extermination of game may 
be caused by legitimate sport; on the contrary, I claim 
that the amotmt killed by sportsmen in a legitimate man- 
ner is much smaller than the natural increase, and that 
our game species would thrive and become plenty if they 
had nothing but their natural enemies and the legitimate 
sportsmen to contend against. 
But in no other class of persons, in proportion to their 
numbers, are there so many epicures as among sports- 
men. No one appreciates the flesh of a wild bird or ani- 
mal so much as the person who has pursued them, and 
taking the markets of this city as a basis, I am confident 
that at least seventy five per cent, of the game sold is pur- 
chased by sportsmen. And these same sportsmen, after 
sitting down to a game dinner and partaking freely of 
game of various kinds, will write articles deploring the 
sale of game and condemning the poor devil who kills 
the game which they eat. "Consistency! Thou art a 
jewel." If these gourmands would only reflect they must 
surely see the absurdity of their position. The traffic in 
game, like the traffic in every other commodity, is gov- 
erned by the law of supply and demand, and while there 
is game to be had, with hungry sportsmen willing to pur- 
chase, the nefarious practice of pot-hunting will continue 
to exist. 
The most effectual, and in fact the only means by which 
the traffic in game can be stopped is to cut off the de- 
mand. If game cannot be sold, it will not be killed for 
that purpose; and if sportsmen and every person who de- 
lights in Nature and admires her creations would con- 
sider it their duty to discourage in every possible way the 
purchase and consumption of dead game the present sys- 
tem of market hunting could be completely eradicated. 
Pennsylvania. ' J. F. O'Neill,, 
Four Deer With Four Shots. 
The night before Christmas Arthur Snyder (a boy 15 
years old) and I went out after deer. We had not gone 
more than a mile from the mill when my dog Frank 
struck a scent from up the canon. We rode slowly and 
looked the ground over carefully. Soon we saw a big 
buck pawing for browse. I saw but one; Arthur said he 
saw two. We hitched our horses and were slipping up 
very, careful, as we thought,the snow was 16 inches deep, 
but" it marie a crunching noise. We had not gone far when 
we saw a deer running down the ridge from our right, 
about 100 yards beyond where we saw those feeding; it 
may have been mussing in a fallen tree-top and have seen 
us.' We kept on, and soon I saw one standing abotit 300 
yards off. I told Arthur I would take a shot at it, and if 
the others ran out he would have a good chance to shoot 
a buck. I thought the one standing was a doe; I raised 
my sight for 300 yards, sat down in the snow, took a knee 
rest, put the cross hairs on the centre of the neck and 
pulled the trigger. At the crack of the rifle, which was 
very little, for i was using a nitro-powder, the deer fell. 
In a, few seconds Arthur pointed out two bucks trotting 
out up the ridge. I told him to wait and they would stop 
as so -n as they got on to the ridge; they did stop: he 
raised his rear sight for 200 yards and fired off hand, and 
down dropped the biggest buck, shot through the ba- k. 
just over the heart. It was a splendid shot, and this was 
his second deer; he had killed one last winter. 
Wednesday I went out on the mountain, back of the 
mill. I wanted to get a deer or two to make into sausage. 
I ha 1 got within half a mile of the summit when Frank 
struck a scent off at my left. I rode along very slow and 
looked the ground over very carefully. Soon I saw three 
deer lying under a fir tree; I got down from the horse and 
raised my ride with the telescope sight, to take a look at 
them. When I got the glass on them they did not look to 
be more than twenty yards away, although they were 
about 100. I drew up off-hand and shot at the old doe's 
neck. The young ones did not get up; I shot at the head 
of the one that was lying next to the old doe. The other 
young one jumped up and trotted up on to a little rise 
about fifteen feet from where its mate lay; I shot at its 
neck, and it fell. That was four deer I had killed at four 
shots. It was the best I had ever done with a new rifle. 
They were the last deer I expect to shoot at this winter. 
It is forty-one years this winter since I killed my first 
deer, but I have never had a combination that is equal to 
the one I now have, yet I never expect to use it in hunt- 
ing game for market, although I may kill a few deer to 
give ..to friends; but my love for hunting has not 
diminished, >and it is the first iwinter I have confined my 
hunting to horseback. I am very anxious to try my new 
outfit on a bear, and I shall go over on Meyers' Creek as 
soon as they come out in the spring. 
Washington. L. W. Wilmot. 
OPINIONS. 
"Hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may." Should 
you stand close enough to have your eye knocked out, do not 
blame the chip, but institLte a "still-hunt" for the power that 
propelled the projectile. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have been a purchaser and reader of your sometimes valu- 
able paper long enough to be the possessor of a number of opin- 
ions, distinctly my own (now published for the first time). 
Whether I have been a patron of sports long enough to entitle 
those opinions to space in your journal or not remains to be 
seen; but in this day of "full cry" about the "market hunter," 
we should at least study the cause and then as carefully apply 
the remedy or remedies. 
It is very strange that some of the brainy people of sports 
have not thought to apply the law of supply and demand to the 
"disapoearing game" question. There is a dearth of employ- 
ment and an over-production of employees. While it is true 
that many people are outlaws by choice, thousands to one are 
outlaws from necessity, and what is true of transgressors of the 
law is also, in great part, true of the "market hunter." 
Let us glance at two pictures that are not hung in rooms at 
the art loan now in progress in this city. 
Picture No. 1.— The scene carries us back to the days of 61-65. 
There is a roaring camp fire on the corner in the village, and to 
the accompaniment of lusty cheers, a frothing speaker is telling 
the youth what a glorious cause is the cause of one's country. 
A mustering officer in a bright uniform paints in roseate hues 
to verdant aspirants for glory undying, the romantic life of a 
"bowld soger boy." How they will march as victors into the 
enemies' cities, the bands playing "See the Conquering Hero 
Comes," that advancement will surely and rapidly follow those 
who now enroll their names upon the muster sheet. The com- 
pany is filled and in a few days is on its way to the front. 
The* recruit has been the recipient of many hearty handshakes, 
and of God speeds; and now that the parting with loved ones is 
passed, he pictures over and over again his old home as he last 
saw it, when the setting sun threw around it a glory whose 
memory will be his only companion daring long aud lonely 
vigils. We need not stop to detail the desperate fighting and 
weary marches, of the longing for home and loved ones. He is 
far out on the skirmish line one day, and along with others is 
surprised and taken a prisoner; and thus ends the first chapter in 
our heroe's war experience He had dreamed of leading captives 
through the enemie's cities; but the officer in bright uniform 
who enrolled his name made no mention of the uncertainties of 
war; and he who would lead the victorious captors is driven 
through the cities of the enemy an object of contempt to be 
spat upon. He asks his fellow prisoners whither they are bound, 
and they know not, but hope not to that prison, that with its 
keeper, has become the adjective of horror on all their lips, 
But it is so, and one day he forms one of the string of ''fresh 
fish" that file between menacing arms into the dread stockade. 
During those dreadful weeks how the memory of brighter days 
come to dispel the gloom of his awful surroundings ! how his 
fitful slumber is filled with faces away in Northland that he 
will never see more! Awakening, his surrroundings are more 
dismal than ever before! The mustering officer had not told 
him of the southern "preserves," and one day he oversteps the 
line— the guard fires, and a shivering, ragged wretch falls to 
earth, to gasp once or twice, and give up his spirit. Perish 
here all golden dreams of the returning conquering hero. Far 
away from friends and those most dear, perishes the victim of 
"preserves." 
The other picture finds its scene in Fatherland. A flaming 
poster tells in ten line pica letters of the occidental El Dorado, 
the land of the free, where there is room enough and land 
enough for all, where sweet songsters warble all day in shady 
woodlands, and where laughing, sparkling waters, teem with 
fiuned beauties, while in the forest depths are found the deer 
and abundance of game. Added to the delightful climate, its 
diversified flora, its sunny skies, there is no place where the 
emigrant is more welcome than in America. She needs you 
all ! Who will come and build up his fortune in the new land? 
The reader "enlists," and in a few days his belongings are on 
the wharf, while many promises are made to those he leaves 
behind to write them all about this wonderful land! He is 
hustled aboard along with others, and ere long his native shores 
fade from the sight of the watching emigrant. 
The days upon the ocean are spent upon golden dreams of to- 
morrows, of the land where all are free, where a living can be 
had for the shooting of it, where the streams teem with fish life, 
and chance thought, has he not with him the trusty firearm 
that was his father's? and in a land where game is so plentiful, 
should empkryrnent fail, why could he not supply those who 
have not tune to follow the chase? 
His capture dates from the moment of his enlistment. On his 
arrival at Castle Garden he is corraled and in a drove with 
others is driven aboard his train. "Where to?" he nsks the 
fellow iu the next pen, but no one can enlighten him. "West- 
ward ho!" the train trends, and ho is as much of a curio to the 
people who crowd thd platforms at way stations as our would- 
be hero was in the enemie's cities. He is set down in Minnesota. 
The snow has not come, and Autumn fires have spread destruc- 
tion and desolation. There is no enjoyment! But a small 
amount of the hoarded coin is left between him and actual 
want. And this is the home of the free! Of nature's prodigal- 
ity, where all who list can have a home! The wind's sighs as 
it disturbs the pine, find echo iu the emigrant's heart — this 
recruit in life's army. Why not expend his remaining money 
for ammunition; go into the forest with the gun that had been 
his father's gift and secure some of that game with which the 
country abounds? The thought is put into practice and he 
soon finds himself on the edge of a fine forest. But what is this 
sign that meets his eye? He cannot read it, but a something in 
the very character forebodes him no good. A stranger ap- 
proaches who is able to understand his question of the sign's 
meaning, and he interprets to him that it means "No Trespass- 
ing — Preserved." And he adds that the preserve belongs to 
one of the country's most popular "sportsman," who owns 
great chunks of stock in the particular "greyhound of the 
seas" that brought the emigrant to freedom's shore. In a 
strange land, far away from all restraining influence; with no 
money, fireside or food; betrayed by the millionaire "Sports- 
man" hog, what will he do? What would you do, gentle 
reader? 
We said the other fell a victim at the "preserve" line; and to 
you remains the finishing touch of the second picture, only ask- 
ing that the last brush efforts be such as practical word artists 
would supply. 
It is truly a matter of supply and demand. With four and 
one half million wage earners out of employment, in Septem- 
ber, two hundred and seventy-one thousand more came during 
the year to supply that which we need not. I am one of the 
forty-seven thousand unemployed in this city alone; and should 
you for a moment think that I shall not join the army of mar- 
ket shooters another winter, you wrong me. And this in the 
face of the statement (B. Waters in "About New Orleans") that 
market shooters make from $5,000 to $6,000 per year net profit. 
If out of employment another winter and can shoot a couple of 
dollars worth per day, aye, even one dollar per day, I will do so 
rather than spend the time in idleness, when profit and pleas- 
ure can be combined. 
We saw by the daily press a few weeks since that the Presi- 
dent of the United States had gone to South Carolina for 
ducks. He got them. The press credited him with two hun- 
dred birds. Yet we find no comment on this slaughter when 
had a fortunate market hunter been about one-third as success- 
ful, the welkin would still be ringing with denunciations by 
the "sprotsman." How about this, "most potent, grave and 
reverend seiguoirs, my very noble and approved good masters?" 
Whisper! If a man whose rating is $6,000,000 and who is the 
recipient of a salary of $50 000 per year, is entitled to two hun- 
dred ducks, how many is the poor emigrant, whom the million- 
aire sportsman has enticed to this country for his passage 
money ,and who possesess nothing but the old-time muzzle 
loader pathfinder of his. dad, entitled to? 
This use of "preserve" seems to be first met with in the biog- 
raphy of the first President. After mention of his stature and 
commanding appearance, the author goes on to speak of his 
strength, and said when he found a man hunting on his prop- 
erty he asked to examine his gun, which he thrust under the 
fence and easily gave it a twist which rendered it useless to its 
owner, This of the immortal W ashington ! 
Forest and Stream, Eod and Gun.— How often have I studied 
that heading! On this winter's eve, me thinks I see foam at 
the vessel's prow, yet can hardly make out whether the canoe 
contains one of nature's sons or a member of one of the modern 
canoe club. The sky I paint myself. As I take it, it will be 
noon ; and the sportsmen have come to the welcome shade of 
the branches that beckon to them. You can easily see Jean in 
the left foreground as he -presides over the grilling board, and 
you wonder what's in the soup. In the right foreground are 
doe and fawn, eavesdropping the angler and hunter in their dis- 
cussion of modern death-dealing sportsman's accessories. I 
have painted all this to myself again and again— in the glad 
springtime when the leaves first a.ppear, — in summer's heat and 
in autumn's colorings— but at no time have I been able to paint 
the picture as a bench show with a bull dog in the first row ! 
Editorializing on the "hounding of deer," you publish J. C. 
Blanton's note in issue Jan. IS, about how "Bennie" and him- 
self got deer by "hounding." Your position in the matter is 
very much like an over-indulgent father toward a very badly 
spoiled child. 
Now, in conclusion, first to make a labor preserve of this 
country; close the Eastern gates and guard well the Northern 
boundary line; and when you have a contented, well employed, 
well paid laboring class, you have the major part of the disap- 
pearing game question settled. 
Wterever you meet the "duffer" treat him cordially and 
well, let him try your improved arm that his conversion 
maybe accomplished. DON F. BARTLETT, 
