Oct. 20, 1900-] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
309 
AJSeptember Afternoon. 
A VAST expanse of prairie, dotted here an^' there with 
spots of darker green, where the rushi^s grow from the 
muddy bottoms of the ponds, and there aye .also a few 
squares here and there of dun-colored stubble lying 
alongside other squares of corn. The sun shines through 
the thin haze of smoke with a lazy warmth. The drowsy 
hum of a threshing machine comes from the edge of one 
of the big patches of stubble, and the cloud of dust it 
raises floats slowly away in the lazy drift of air. Away 
down- near the other end of the stubble three brant are 
looking for shattered grains of wheat with one eye, and 
watching the tbreshermen with the other. 
■ A man carrying a gtin and' followed by an old setter 
comes OA'er the top of a knoll and sits down on its top 
to rest a little and take a look. He sees the three brant, 
picking wheat out of the stubble. He wants one of them, 
but how is he to get it? There is no cover except 
the foot-high stubble. It seems a hopeless case, but the 
more he looks at the brant the more he wants them, 
until it seems as if he just must have one of them. There 
is a big weed some 60 yards from the brant, and by 
making a detour of nearly half a mile the weed can be 
put between the man and the brant, so he goes back over 
the knoll and out of sight. Presently he peeps over the 
top of the knoll in another place, and lies down, not to 
crawl toward the brant, but literally to drag himself on 
his belly for 400 j^ards. His clothing matches the color 
of the dead stubble, and so does the color of the lemon- 
colored dog. As the man goes down he gives the dog a 
word of caution, and the dog gets down and crawls along 
' his master's trail. When the brant are looking for grain 
the man drags himself along, and when they raise their 
heads he flattens himself on the ground and lies still, and 
this is very often, for the brant are suspicious, and if the 
men at the threshing machine were not attracting' most 
of their attention the man would soon be discovered. 
It takes over half an hour to get to the big weed, but 
at last it is reached, and he takes a cautious peep. It 
looks a long ways to the brant. All of 60 yards, and 
hardly worth while to shoot. How^ever, he has some 
extra heavy loads of No. 4 shot, and will try them a 
couple of times for luck, and perhaps he can get a little 
closer before they fly; but the instant he pokes his head 
around the weed every brant head goes up. They are 
about ready to fly anyway, for the threshing machine 
has stopped, and the men are watching the man with the 
gun. .(s they are well bunched now is the time to shoot, 
so he suddenly rises to his knees and gives it to 'em. 
Whoop! Winged one. and one of the other two goes 
away as if it had not been touched. The dog is sent 
lor the winged one, but the man keeps his eyes on the 
two that are flying away. After they have gone half a 
mile one of them "lets go," and tumbling over and over 
falls on a plowed field. Then the men at the thresher 
give a yell of sympathy and approval, and resume their 
labor; and the man goes over the plowed field and finds 
the brant lying on its back with its feet in the air. 
O. H. H.AMPTON. 
Choke-Bored Guns. 
Early in the sixties the gun store in Concord, New 
Hampshire, was owmed' by John I. Eastman." Eastman 
was considered the best all round shot in the State, and 
1 do not think his equal has been seen here since. He 
was an expert, wing shot, as.no doubt some of the old, 
time sportsmen recall, who knew him in the days when 
m the covers tround Concord, woodcock and grouse 
were abundant. London and Canterbury and other ad- 
jacent towns in those days were known to-a few as first- 
rate grounds, not only for local birds, but in fl'ght time. 
At rifle shooting, and also with a pistol, Eastman was 
equally expert. Chicken and turkey shoots were numer- 
ous then, and the way in which Eastinan knocked over 
turkeys at from forty to sixty rods was rather discour- 
aging to those who set them up. 
Eastman had the reputation of choke-boring the 
muzzleloading shotguns of those days and producing 
very close, hard shooting guns. He would guarantee 
1-50 pellets of No. 8 shot in a 12-inch circle 
at eight rods, using x% ounces or less of shot. The 
first choke-bore I ever saw was of his boring. I was a 
boy then, and one afternoon I was out with a high 
priced English gun, when I met a local hunter, who 
after admiring my gun said he had one which would 
outshoot it. He produced a very cheap looking gun. 
and we tried both at targets. His gun beat niine about 
four to one. Afterwards I saw some guns of. the same 
boring. Usually the barrels w-ere bored to within 
about one-eighth of an inch of muzzle, leaving what 
looked like a ring of small wire just at muzzle. He 
also used sometimes what he called the hamm.er choke, 
a light hammer being tised on the muzzle. Now 
the gun makers of to-day would say that such 
methods of choking a gun would not be at all durable, 
and probably it wou'd not, as guns are now used with 
nitro powder and chilled shot, but as guns were used in 
Eastman's time they were said to hold their close shoot- 
ing for a long time. 
There was one gun owned by a well known sports- 
man of Concord which I wish to mention. This gun 
was a light twelve bore, made by Hollis & Sheath. 
Some time in 1864 the owner took this gun to Eastman, 
asking him to make it shoot as close as possible. The 
gun was first bored on what Eastman called a long 
choke, som'ething like the taper choke of to-day. The 
hammer choke .was also added. At an 8-irich ring 
at eight rods this gun would pattern over 200 pellets, 
using one ounce of No. 8 shot. At eighty yards, 
using, as 1 was told. No. , 6 . shot, it would ■ average 
from six to eight: pellets in a 6-inch circle. The owner 
shot a fox at eight rods, using No. 8 shot, killing 
him trstantlv. He said he shot at the fox's' head, and it 
looked as though about the whole load struck it. The 
ears locked 'ike a sieve on account of shot holes. The 
gun shot with great penetration and always ^hot to the 
Tenter. ' 
The owner said that practically for about any sort 
of Carrie shooting the gun was useless, when he hit a 
fiiifd; It wap spoilt, and that it wmifd cut to pieces any 
gray squirrel, no matter how tall a tree it was on. 
This gun was sold to some one in Salem, Mass., and 
I am told it beat easily every gun there shot against it. 
During the winter of 1885 I saw, at New Orieans, a 
celebrated gun made by W. W. Greener, which had 
been treated at the muzzle with a hammer by its owner 
The gun in question was Dr. W. F, Carver's celebrated 
"Old Widow," and when I saw it it showed plainly the 
hammer treatment. 
The modern choke bores all shoot pretty well, and 
many of them too close for cover shooting, yet I think 
there are times when some of us would like to own 
such a close shooting gun as the Concord one I have 
spoken of. I know I tried for some years to get a gun 
for our style of fox hunting.' I tried a number of guns 
from twelve to eight bores and also about every shot 
concentrator I'coul'cl hear of. Some years since I saw 
a light gun one barrel of which wa.s bored on what was 
called the rifle choke. The owner of the gun said that 
he could kill at every shot a single duck sitting in the 
water at eighty yards. Shortly afterwards I saw the 
agents of this gun, and said that I wanted to get a gun 
which would shoot close enough with large shot to kill 
a fox at one hundred yards. They thought they could 
furnish a ten-bore on the rifle choke system, which 
with single B shot would kill a fox at every shot at 125 
yards. I ordered two guns with the understanding that 
I was to give them a good trial at a target the size of 
an ordinary fox standing broadside at 125 yards, and if 
the guns would average three pellets in the target I 
would take them. Some three months later the .guns 
arrived, and I spent half a day making targets with 
them. They were both complete failures at all distances 
down to forty yards. I packed up both guns with the 
targets made' and sent them back, and never heard of 
them afterwards. 
Now the full choke bored guns of to-day shoot pretty 
well. The trouble I find with many of them (and I 
have given the most careful trials to a good many) is 
that they do not shoot to the center of the target shot 
at. They .will shoot high, low or to right, and often 
to get such patterns as the makers claim, a large target 
has to be used and the 30-inch circle selected. 
Some years since, when the ten-bore was used a good 
deal, a party of duck shooters were at Currituck.. There 
was considerable talk at night about long range shoot- 
ing. A sportsman present said his gun would average 
three No. 8 shot in a target the size of a silver 
dollar, at ten rods distance. The result was a bet of 
ten dollars a side for ten shots. Every time the gun put 
three or mOre pellets in the target it won a dollar, and 
when it failed it lost a similar amount. The trial came ofif 
on a. still day. and. the gun failed in ten shots to put 
a single pellet in the target. I would suggest 
to any of the owners of what they think extra close 
shootin.g guns the following test: Measure exactly forty 
yards from the muzzle of the gun. Drive a stake at 
that distance and out one of anv of the targets now 
used for trapshooting on the stake, with edge toward 
the STUn. Shoot say five strings of ten shots each, and 
see how many times you can break ten straight; Simplv 
knocking the target off the stake does not count — it 
must be broken, in at least two pieces. Trv it and let 
us hear. about it. ' C. M. Stark. 
DUNBARTtVK. N. H , Oct. 10. ' 
The Maine Guide Law. 
BosTox, Oct. i.'^. — The celebrated Maine guide case is 
settled, and orobably settled for all time. The. Snowman 
case, which has claimed the attention of the Maine courts 
for the past two or three years, has evidently been settled, 
and the Commissioners are victorious. Doubtless others 
with similar cases will accept Snowman's as a test case, 
fully testing the license .eiiide law. Elmer Snowman, 
one of the oldest and best known guides of the Rangeley 
region, a man well liked by all who have ever emolov^-d 
him. a good citizen and a gentleman, conceived the idea 
that the law requiring a .euide to take out a license is 
oppressive and unconstitutional. He resisted in the 
vear 1898. and attempted guiding without the required 
license. He was arrested and arraiRned for sfuiding with- 
out a license. He stood trial bv jurv. which convicted 
him. His counsel, then Enc>ch Whitcomb. but later 
Foster & Hersey. of Portland, filed exceptions, and made 
m.otion for. arrest of judgment. The casp subsequently 
went to the law court. May 19, 1899. The law court 
rendered its decision, overruling exceptions as to in- 
sufficiency of indictment and as to the constitutionality 
of the statute under which the indictment was found, but 
sustained exceptions as to the charge of the presiding 
justice to . the jury. On these exceptions Snowman's 
counsel advised him to as.k for a new trial, and in it he 
was also supported by brotlier guides and associations of 
guides. The new trial was granted, but somehow Snow- 
"■'an has weakened, and at the nresent term of court at 
Farmington he has withdra^'n his plea of not euilty and 
has been fined hy Judge Whitehouse $50. Reoort says 
that Mr..Snown)an has ntiid this fine and asked for a 
''cense for guiding. W^ill the Cotnmis,sionf rs grant it? 
Newspaper rumors have it that they will. The case has 
excited a great deal of intierest, inasmuch as it has in- 
volved a .trijlde of so much note, and TOUst be regarded 
as a test of the constitutiona-lity of the latV- -, 
Oct. 15. — Still the renorts .show that hardly one-half the 
nuniber of deer are being taken in Mai n« that were taken 
for the corresponding time a year aero. A- Bansror special 
of Satnrdav savs the total number of deer pa=sing thro"Erh 
that city for the season to date ha.< h^en 22/I ; same time 
last year, 492. St'll. the week .showed, a gain of twen*^y- 
four deer over the first week of the season. Other otit- 
lets to the . big-game sections of that State do not t^ake 
a^ good a showincr as the section above B'incor. Fronn 
the Rane^eley secri'^'h very few deer have been bmuo-ht. 
The section above Bingham mnkes even a noorer <=hnwing 
romnare^l with a vear ago. From f'^nlish renorfc; about 
deer in great abundance, the nanerc giv^n to boomins the 
game regions have come aronnd to pdm'ttino- that ^^eer 
are not as nlentv as la«t vear. hut "^till abundant. Thev 
have also fixed un several excuses for the small number 
brought out. one be'ner the warm weather, making <^por<-^- 
men not care to bring out the'r trophies; another the 
Jdefj tb.at wet weather and falling leave.<! have made hunt- 
ing difficult and unproductive. But the true answer comes 
from sportsmen returned — the deer are not there. C. E. 
Sprague, A. Kilgore and F. Vaughn, of Boston, and Mr. 
Kimball, of Fitchburg, have returned from their hunting 
trip to Portage Lake, Aroostook county. They got only 
one or two small deer, though hunting for ten or twelve 
days in a good game section. Mr. Prank Gannong, of the 
Boston Herald, is back from a hunting trip to the woods 
above Caribou. He got no deer; saw but very few. 
Mr. C. H. Fairbanks has returned from his annual 
shooting trip to the Megantic preserve, where he was 
accompanied by Mrs. Fairbanks. They propose building 
an ideal log camp of their own on the grounds of the 
preserve. He saw several deer, and got a good buck, 
but did n6t see half as many as he saw on the same 
grounds a year ago. He also found partridges very scarce 
where they were plenty a year ago. The guides account 
for this under the theory that the chicks were-killed by the 
wet weather in June and July, when it rained :in that part 
of the country every day, more or less, fo?- seven weeks, 
Mr. W. R. Batemari' has returned from the same preserve. 
He was fortunate enough to secure a bear as well as ^ buck 
deer with six prongs to each antler. E. M. Gillarrt,, of 
the Boston Advertiser, was out with the boy in the Read- 
ing woods after partridges Friday morning. The dog 
worked finely and put up one bird, which the boy, shot. 
They also secured a rabbit or two. They think partridges 
in their section are about the same as last year as to 
numbers, but wild and very hard to get. Mr. John G. 
Wright has been absent for a couple of weeks, quartered 
at the home of the Commodore Club, Moose Lake, Me. 
He is an active member of that club, and much interested 
in restocking the waters with trotit and salmon. The 
salmon are doing well, his parly having hooked on to one 
or two good ones before the law came on, but being un- 
accustomed to handling such lively fish the prizes got 
away. They had fine white perch fishing. 
Special. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
The Rockies. 
^ Chicago, IM., Oct. 13. — This morning Billy Hofer, of 
Gardiner, Mont., stepped into the office just as though he 
belonged here, and I reckon maybe he does while he is in 
this part of the world. Billy is just back from a trip of 
forty-five days with two gentlemen prominent in the 
ai¥airs of the Winchester Repeating Fire Arms Com- 
pany, and as usual he was successful in showing his 
clients plenty of game, each killing his legal two head 
of elk without the slightest difficulty, and both getting 
very fine heads. The hunt was made south and southeast 
of the Yellowstone Park, and the party saw probab'y over 
600 elk in all. and took their time in getting the speci- 
mens they wished. The}- had along a Wyoming licensed 
guide, as the law requires, and, of course, had to take out 
Wyoming game licenses. Billy says that the local guides 
kick on the Wyoming law. They don't mind it so much 
if a non-resident has to pay $40, but they hate to dig out 
$10 themselves. That .seems to make the law more of a 
personal matter. 
The Winchester party had a very pleasant time, and 
put in a part of the time in fishing for trout, of which 
they took abundance in the Snake River, the Buffalo 
Fork and other streams wrhich they met on their voyaging 
through the moimtains, which extended as far southeast 
as the corner of the Wind River range. Billy says that 
this year the elk horns are the best he has ever seen,' or at 
least has seen for years. The past two winters have been 
mild, the food good and everything has conspired to make 
the big game fat and comfortable, so that the elk had full 
opportuniiy for expansion in the matter of horns. 
A peculiar incident took place during this trip, which 
shows the occasional lack of brains on the part of a 
naturally shrewd wild animal. They were traveling a'ong 
through the mountains one day, with their pack train, hav- 
ing two or three sets of elk antlers lashed on top of the 
packs. They heard an elk whistling, and presently he 
came into sight. Instead of running away, he .stood and 
took a good look at the caravan of horses, and see'ng the 
horns sticking up seemed to think that he had run across 
a new sort of elk. which none the le=s he was plenty willing 
to tackle on general principles. He came on down within 
50 yards of the pack train, challenging all the time, and 
seeming to be surprised that he could not pick a fight. 
Billy tells me that snow fell in the Park on Aug. 19. and 
it has snowed since then regularly, and the outlook is for 
lots of snow. He says the coyotes are very numerous in 
the Park now, and th'nks they may make trouble for the 
antelope. The antelope have come down in numbers on 
the Gardiner Flats already, the earliest date of their ap- 
pearance there ever known, Oct. 3 seeing them there 
in numbers. It tnust be prettv bad ixp in the moun'a'us 
to drive them down so early. The party saw some buffalo 
sign while en route through the Park, bitt did not .see 
any buffalo. The Government i"? building a wagon road 
through the lower part of the Park out to Cody, on the 
Burlington road, and 'his work probably drove the buffalo 
awav from near the Yellowstone Lake region. 
Billy tells me that the whole Northwest is flooded, the 
fall having been a very Avet one. Grass is a foot or 
eighteen inches hi.gh in' North Dakota now, and i<; plurt 
green instead of dead and dry looking, as i= n.si^aHv the 
case. Between this citv and St. Paul, on the Milwaukee & 
St. Paul Railroad, there have been such heavy flood'? that 
for six days no train got through on one section of the 
rriad. Jn=t this side of Portage. Wis., Billv saw a ^ineular 
th'ng. There had been a freshet near there wh'ch had 
flooded one of the =wamps. and arparentiv i*- Viad dr'ven 
out of the swamp all the .spiders that ever had lived there. 
They had taken refuge on the railway embankment and 
had spun webs until the cla}-^ and gravel were almost en- 
tirely obscured from view. Every one has noticed how 
plainly a we'h'shows when covered with dew of a m-^rning. 
Billy =ays that it was a strange and wonderful sight this 
morning when they came through there. It ban an- 
parently been a good spider year up in that part nf Wis- 
consin, for the tra'n passed through water which was 
literallv covered with them. They lav in windrows, and 
the -wnnd blew ridges of the dead spiders up along the 
shore. 
Wildfowl of all sorts are reported very abundant this 
