March 26, 1898.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
245 
right and left double in and a 50yds. kill. Then we got 
each a signal bird. Many of the birds went into the 
trees, as they do here the first time they are shot at very 
often. Not over one-quarter of a mile' beyond Moore's 
Don took the wind and soon came to a handsome point 
in a field. We got three birds in the rise. Marked down 
near a thicket. They flushed wild, but we got in a 
double. This gave us fifteen quail in just thirty minutes. 
After a drive of one and one-half miles the dogs made 
game and went over a fence into the wind 200yds. My 
dog Sport pointed in a thicket. We flushed two coveys 
in the bush, with no shots; but some of the birds flew 
through, and we got one each. In this field we both 
got rattled; made many misses, and got only ten and 
lost two. Snipe Point was our next stop. There the 
dogs did some fine winding, and made a splendid point. 
I got two in the rise; Mr. M. got a shot at his bird. As 
I went to get one of my birds I walked up a very large 
bevy and got one. Mr. M. marked. The dogs each had 
a bird. I got a right and left; Mr. M. two single birds 
and shot another which flew a long way. The ground 
being too bare the birds flushed again and went to an 
pulpit is the ideal man and preacher, and he indulges 
in all these things; is always armed and always accom- 
panied by a dog, that should he have been able to have 
selected his own pedigree he couldn't have done better. 
When a man, be he either of the clergy or a layman, 
discovers a covey of well-gi-oomcd quail, he has discov- 
ered a bunch of flying facts; when with the assistance or 
directions, maj'be, of his well-trained, precious dog, he 
gathers in these scattered facts he has got something 
real. 
Some men miss most of these coveted and hidden 
facts, while others gather many. The feast is always in 
proportion. 
Adaptability with the Bible and gun are alike in at 
least one sense. Some can gather bags of real facts, 
and reason, and good with both, while the sweet essence- 
of either or both are lost to many. 
The students of all classes, wliether in the ptfrsttit of 
theological or agricultural facts, can better deal with 
tlie intricacies of their calling or chosen paths in life 
who seek inspiration away from the tools of their labor, 
be they page ig of an old Greek Testament or the newest 
Sharps with a view of slipping down the road to the east, 
screened from view by the bushes growing along the hill- 
side, and secreting laerself in front of the slowly ad- 
vancing game. And now an unexpected trouble was 
encountered — the gun hammer wouldn't stand cocked! 
IIow had papa managed to hunt with it all these years 
if the wretched thing acted like this: 
Finally, after a deal of nervous experimenting, it was 
discovered that the set triggers had to be first ad- 
justed when the gun worked perfectly. Taking three 
express ball cartridges she then hurried down the 
ravine, and succeeded in gaining a position in front of 
the wary animals, and catching a glimpse of them through 
the bushes she cocked the rifle, when again the elusive 
creatures vanished in the bushes. 
Seeing a better position in front she advanced care- 
fully, but without thinking to lower the hammer, when a 
touch from her unaccustomed finger sprung the hair trig- 
ger; the rille roared unexpectedly, and the express bul- 
let tore lip the earth in front, while the deer bounded 
off up the hillside and vanished completely. 
Meanwhile Mrs. Belknap had been keeping watch from 
A BOSTON "MOOSE YARD." 
Photo for the Forest and Stream by N. L. Stebbins. 
open grass field, where it would have been murder to 
have followed them. We had killed thirty-three quail 
in three and one-half hours, and had a number of plover 
and snipe, and being six miles from home did not fol- 
low. . T 1 
This is a wonderful quail section — I never saw the 
equal. We hunt in buggies and drive through the open 
woods anywhere. It is truly sport. Not the hard tramp- 
ing one has to do in most places. 
The season for quail closes March IS; for doves, snipe 
and duck there is no law. A. H. C. 
The Pulpit and the Field. 
This- subject maJ^ to many of those of the blue-stock- 
ing straight-laced persuasion, savor more of the carnal 
than the spiritual. To the broad-gauged mind that has 
never been wrecked, side-tracked or stuck in the mire 
of prejudice and narrow-gauged early training, or 
swamped by dogmatic teachings of the present, it ap- 
peals with winning freedom to the former, and a sweet 
sense of appreciation of the latter. 
It is the logical mind that reaches logical conclusions. 
This is very true in the pulpit. It's equally true of and 
in the field. , 
I don't contend that a preacher must shoot well or 
should shoot at all to preach well, but I do believe many 
of them would preach better if they shot even indiffer- 
ently. It's where the gun takes us that we get inspira- 
tion, to say nothing of the charming companionship of 
our dogs. , , 
The confines of the book-bedecked library or study 
are full of facts, fancies and dogmas. The average con- 
gregation knows this exceedingly well. Still it's in these 
confines that the great truths have been sifted out and 
given to us, and too for our good and edification. 
Great minds have been wrecked in research and study, 
others are on the verge of toppling, while still others 
ought to be employed in planning the easiest and most 
expeditious way of plowing a thirty acre lot of stumpy 
ground in a given length of time with one of their pair 
of oxen laid up with the colic and the outcome of the 
disease uncertain. 
I say this notwithstanding the fact that probably of the 
men I love most the one is of "the cloth," nor is it my 
intention to cast any undeserved reflection on our able 
clergy. 
As the sunlight is good for the flowers (if not es- 
sential), so too the broad fields, the tangled weeds and 
brush, the worn fences and blackberry briers, the wash- 
outs, scrub oaks and pines, while not essential, are surely 
good for the ''gray inatter" in man. My occupant of the 
■invention of a plow on which the plowman can ride. 
A man who can eulogize the life and death of a great 
dog and finds in his memory's precious cells indelibly 
engraved pictures of the points and flushes of his dog's 
earthly career, and at the same time fills a prominent 
position as a Bible historian of our age, or any other good 
position in life, shows a brain broad and big enough to 
contain the simple things of life, which after all are the 
best and purest. Such minds show a finished field train- 
ing. 
An eminent physician recently said to me, "Give me 
the cold water out-of-door man, of a moral disposition, 
who of necessity is and keeps himself in good, vigorous 
physical condition, and the brain and mind will assert 
themselves." 
Sunday morning in the pretty stone church we hear 
the strong, manly sermons, full of gentleness and purity. 
Monday at noon the clere^y and layman dine by the edge 
of the brook, seated on broken rocks, from the capacious 
pockets of the canvas coats. I have heard of the "Sport- 
ing Parson" and I like him not. My companion is a 
clergyman and only a man. 
One might as well expect to raise corn 14ft. high in 
the sands by the sea, or thrifty sweet roses in the sub- 
cellar of a New York tenement house, as to find great 
and gentle qualities in the man whose handshake and 
smile cause us to sljiver, be he clergyman or cowbojr. 
Thomas Elmer. 
Elizabeth, March 1.5.1 
Her First Deer. 
The old days had gone forever. Conditions had 
changed entirely. The wild animals had retreated be- 
fore the advancing wave of civilization, and the time 
came at length when nothing save the firm good sense 
of a certain little wife and mother stood in the way of 
another hegira deeper and further into the heart of the 
yet remaining wilderness. 
Venison had long since disappeared from the cabin 
and the memory of it had been reluctantly pigeon-holed 
with that of the buffalo meat of twenty odd years agone. 
When at length on a certain eventful morning my wife 
happened to look out of the window toward the top of 
the hill a quarter of a mile north of the house, what was 
her surprise to note three beautiful deer walking slowly 
along the hillside near the top. 
What was to be done? Father and sons were absent, 
and no one was at home save her and our youngest 
daughter. Miss Echo Belknap. Two rifles were avail- 
able, the old .45cal. Sharps and a .socal. needle gun be- 
longing to one of the boys. 
A hurried council resulted in the girl selecting the 
the kitchen window, needle gun in hand, and a few mo- 
ments after the crack of the Sharps was heard she saw 
a deer coming from the direction of the report, and run- 
ning along the hillside along its back track, stop for a 
final glance at the cabin about i2Syds. distant. 
Resting the rifle on the sill of the open window she 
fired at the pretty creature, and scored a clean miss, when 
it ran up over the hill and disappeared. 
The roar of the needle gun gave the girl the direction 
the deer had taken, and she hurried back to the house, 
there to learn of the mother's ill success; and to condole 
with her over the misfortunes that had overtaken them 
both. 
There was yet a possibility in her favor. Might she 
not yet pursue and overtake them? 
With renewed hope she climbed the hill in the direc- 
tion from which the deer had first come, and for an hour 
wandered through the forest in a vain search for 
the tantalizing creatures, when discouragement again 
overwhelmed her and she turned homeward, completely 
dejected. 
However, the unexpected had not yet been reckoned 
upon — that strange factor in the problem of hunting wild 
animals. 
She had reached the top of the hill back of the house 
when, coming out into a little opening in the bushes, 
about looyds. wide, a deer was seen in the opening near 
the bushes of the opposite side. 
Noting instantly that the deer had not yet observed 
her, she sank upon one knee behind a branch of tiny 
bushes and fired so hurriedly that she missed complete- 
ly. Instantly the frightened animal turned and ran di- 
rectly toward her; while with fingers trembling with ex- 
citement she hurried to insert her last remaining cartridge 
into the barrel of the faithful old rifle, that only needed to 
be properly handled to account for any game in the 
hills. 
The deer actually ran within 50ft. of her, when, prob- 
ably hearing the click of the closing lever, it stopped 
and glanced nervously around in search of the hidden 
peril, when with a final roar the old reliable stretched the 
beautiful animal lifeless in front of the eager girl. 
Hurrying back to her mother, she told her exciting 
story. "Were you not sorry for the poor creature after 
you had killed it?" asked tlie mother. 
"No," she replied, 'T was too excited and too jubi- 
lant to think of it then;" adding after a pause, "I guess 
the bad blood must be coming to the front; I'm a Bel- 
knap, that's sure!" 
And now when the old uncle is delegated to knock 
at the door of Forest and Stream, and ask of the 
sportsmen of America in her name for a place among 
the regularly listed devotee? of Piana, who shall say her 
nay.' 
Orin Belknap. 
