S26 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
this spring, and after that he will go into the Rocky 
Mountains for a fishing trip. I find that he hunts elk 
and deer out near Kalispel, Mont., where he has a 
brother living, and they go out with a guide who has 
killed eighty-seven grizzlies along what is known as Coal 
Creek, which I think runs up toward the Blackfoot 
reservation on the west coast of the Rockies. 
Mr. W. H. Cornwell, one of the directors of the 
Chicago Gun Club, is about this week looking pretty 
badly, but better than he was some months ago. On 
Feb. 9, while Mr. Cornwell was experimenting with 
some flash light powders, an explosion tobk place 
which blew his right hand to pieces. The best the doctors 
could do was to leave him the little finger and the next 
finger, the first two fingers and the thumb being entirely 
removed. The hand is at last healing, and Mr. Corn- 
well begins to figure how he is going to do his shooting. 
He is hopeful and cheerful, and willing to begin all over 
again, and learn to shoot from his left shoulder if that 
be necessary. For the consolation of Mr. Cornwell and 
others who may thus unfortunately be deprived of the 
use of the right hand, it may be stated that scientists de- 
clare that the use of the left hand in any special function 
is much more quickly gained than one would suppose. 
The education of one hand unconsciously educates the 
other. Thus a man experimenting for a term of weeks 
in lifting weights with his right arm, found that while 
his left arm had not increased in strength so much as 
the right, it still was very much stronger than before the 
right arm was used in this way. It takes a long while 
to learn to write with the right hand, but after one has 
learned to use the right hand in that way he can learn 
to write with his left hand very much more quickly. 
There are a great many shooters who have changed late 
in life to shooting from the left shoulder. Thus our 
friend Bobo, who has lost his left eye, is going to shift 
and learn how to shoot from his right shoulder, he being 
•formerly a left-handed shooter. By the way, Bobo goes 
home to-day, as well as one could be after so sad a 
misfortune as his. 
Sighting a. Rifle. 
Billy Hofer and I have this week been doing some 
work in sighting a couple or rifles, and our experiments 
may have a certain interest for others who buy rifles 
out of stock. In the first place, I wanted to get a higti 
power gun, with the deliberate intention of mussing up 
my grizzly bear as badly as possible when we came to 
shake hands out in the mountain this spring. Pop 
Hirth, over at Spalding's, had a second-hand .30-40 
which was as good as new, but whiph the owner was 
willing to alienate for a consideration. We spent three 
days in trying to get a group with this rifle, and we never 
did it. We found that the original factory sights had 
been taken from this gun, and tliat an ivory bead Lyman 
had been put on. We could not do much with this 
sight and the hind sight, which had been put on the rifle, 
hence we put on a new hind sight and the original 
factory fore sight. Still we could not get the group we 
wanted. Then we filed down the rear sight and put on 
a still higher fore sight. Result, instead of shooting 6 
inches high, as had been the case, the gun shot about 
8 inches low at 75 yards. As we still could not get a 
decent group, Billy and I gave it up, and concluded we 
did not want this gun at all. It probablw has a bit of 
rust or lead in it. Then, as I expected to leave town in 
a few days, we got Pop Hirth to wire the_ Winchester 
factory to send out a brand new .30-40 with shotgun 
butt, ivory fore sight and with a platinum line Winches- 
ter express sight, which has a flat top and three leaves. 
This was the sight which Billy Hofer says he had on 
his rifle, and which he said was very satisfactory. We 
also wired the factory to test this rifle with a point 
blank of 100 yards. The rifle came promptly and in 
time, and with it a target of seven shots, all in the 6- 
inch bullseye at 100 yards, one of them plumb center, 
and only two wild ones. "This begins to look like a 
gun," said Billy, and we immediately took it out to try 
it. This time we found we had our gun. The only diffi- 
culty is that oAving to the rapid taper of the .30-40 barrel 
this express sight sits almost too low to enable one to 
draw a real fine sight. We cannot tell whether our tests 
at the factory were with the So-yard leaf or the lOO-yard 
leaf. When we drew down as fine as we could see the 
front bead with the 50-yard leaf we got a splendid 
group, but it was just below the edge of the bullseye. 
With this fine draw we found that there was a little glim- 
mer from the middle part of the band which goes across 
the breech of the barrel. 
"We will take some salt and water," said Billy, "and 
we'll kill that little glare off the bluing. Then we'll 
have a gun that will cut the head of a grouse or the heart 
of a bear at any distance you want, from nothing up to 
200 yards. I have tried my gun with those sights and 
I never monkey with the last sight at all, but just turn 
her loose, and I always get what I want." 
I don't think any man can shoot a given rifle per- 
fectly until he has gotten a little bit used to it. My 
.30-30 I found a very sweet shooting gun, and I am 
loath to give it up for the .30-40, which I do not believe 
is as accurate an arm in any specimen of the breed as is 
it as accurate an arm in any specimen of tlie breed as the 
.30-30; yet I want something which will work havoc 
and devastation. The Winchester people sent out at 
Billy's suggestion some of their hollow-pointed .30-40 
bullets. These I do not believe are on the market 
regularly, but Billy says he saw them tried by some of 
the gentlemen of the firm on elk (Mr. Hooper and Mr. 
Winchester Bennett) last fall, and they smashed the 
back bone of an elk plumb in two. We confidently be- 
lieve that we have got a bear gun this time. 
Now for the gentler member of the party it was 
necessary to get a .22. and we took a Marl in out of 
stock. It has a rear sight of the pronghorn. stair step 
pattern, which used to be common on all our rifles, along 
with the very coarse metal fore sight. We tried these 
sights and found that the little gun put the bullets in 
one place, but too high. Hence we took a hammer and 
a chisel and smashed all the sights off of this gun also. 
We put on the same platinum line express sights for the 
rear sight and picked out a little low ivory bead front 
sight. Then we went to work on a i-inch bullseye at a 
distance of 20 or 30 feet. We thought we were missing 
the whole target, but when we came to check up we 
found we were getting in the black practically all the 
time. We quit monkeying with that gun then. 
Billy Hofer tells me that the reason rifles are sent out 
sighted as they are is that the factory is unable to hit 
upon any one sight which will please everybody. Hence 
they send out a good, fair working sight and let every 
fellow do his own tinkering afterward. The result of 
such amateur tinkering in the case of a .30-40 or .30-30 
is nearly always disastrous, and I have heard of many 
fellows who changed their fore sight and then wondered 
why they could not get a good pattern with these high- 
power rifles. I went through this sort of thing with my 
■30-30, and at last went back to the factory sights, which 
pleased me better in that gun than anything I have ever 
found in my experiments. Personally, I like to have a 
sight which I can draw very fine, and I have a front sight 
on my .30-30 which permits this. When I want to go up 
in the 200 yards business, I just draw it a little fuller, and 
it gets in among the proper spots without any ftirther 
bother. As to the extension rear sight, I do not see 
what earthly use there is for one on one of these small- 
bore rifles, and I would just as soon have a plain flat 
bar, close to the barrel, with a small notch in it, as a $14 
sight with pink frills. 
Indeed I believe the very perfection in rifle sighting 
was that which itsed to be put on the old squirrel rifl;s. 
My father told me it took him many days to sight his 
squirrel rifle, and I imagine it might surprise a go^d 
many to learn how he cut the notch in the rear sight. He 
did not use any file or saw, but went down in the notch 
little by little, simply wearing away the soft steel by rhe 
diligent use of a soft-pointed pin, such as is ordinarily 
found on a lady's dressing table. Thus, hair by hair, he 
got the rear sight just deep enough, un*til eventually the 
old rifle would put five shots at 80 yards into almost 
the same hole, showing only a little ragged edge which 
could almost be covered by a silver dime. I still have 
this old gun, and I must say that I would not part Avith 
It for all the other rifles T know of or have ever owned. 
But that is the way to sight a rifle. Take time and do 
not take chances. I wish I had these squirrel sights 
on all my high-power rifles. They are good enough. 
The repeater notion did a great deal toward killing 
accurate sighting and accurate shooting among riflemen 
of America. Too many of us are willing to blaze away 
at a bunch of hair, forgetting the sage counsel of Joe 
Kipp, who says he would rather have a weak rifle aaIiicIi 
would shoot just where he wanted to, than a bigger gun 
in which he had no confidence. Bobo, when consulted, 
snorted at the idea that I needed any better bun than 
my .45-70, with which I blew a big hole through a black 
bear in his country. But Bobo's idea of a rifle is one 
that will stand hard knocks and never needs cleaning. 
E. Hough. 
Hartford Building, Chicago, IlL 
J* £♦ Overton to Be Reinstated. 
The removal of State Fish and Game Protector John 
E. Overton, of Port Jefferson, and the appointment of 
Capt. Selah T. Clock (who formerly held the position) 
to be his successor, has created a great deal of comment 
in the newspapers and considerable activity among the 
friends of Mr. Overton, and indeed among those who 
hitherto have not always been looked upon as his friends.' 
There was a general feeling that Mr. Overton was a good 
official and had done more than any of his predecessors 
to secure enforcement of the laAvs relating to fisheries 
and game. The only charge against him was that he had 
gone to Albany to appear against the McKeown bill, 
which was detrimental to the interests of the baymen and 
net fishermen of the county. He angered some of the 
members of the Fish, Forest and Game Commission who 
favored the bill, but considered that he was doing right 
in fighting it as the people of Suffolk county were prac- 
tically a unit against it. 
When Overton was summarily removed Senator Mc- 
Kinney named. Mr. Clock as his successor, but took no 
part in the fight against Mr. Overton. The latter at 
once appealed to the Civil Service Commission and re- 
tained counsel to fight the matter in the courts. He se- 
cured the backing of some of the most influental men 
in Suffolk county, who considered the move ill advised 
and likely to stir up factional feeling which had been: 
allayed. 
The News is just in receipt of a telegram from Albany 
annotmcing upon the atithority of Lieut.-Gov. Wood- 
ruff, President of the State Fish, Forest and Game 
Commission, that the charges against Mr. Overton will 
be dismissed and that he will be reinstated. — Suffolk 
County News, Sayville, N. Y., April 19. 
The Htfntingf License. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have read in your columns about hunting licenses. I 
think it is all right to tax non-resident hunters $25, and 
citizens of the State $5, and of the cotmty $1. But my 
idea is that this will not last long. I think the next move 
will be from $5 to $25 and that will bar the poor man 
out, and some -day it may be that the highest bidder 
takes the ear.h, as they have in some places across the 
pond. Who is doing all the slaughter of game? It is 
not the poor man. I see all the best duck marshes and 
shooting grounds are owned or leased by some club, so 
the slaughter must be in such places. If there are any 
vacations for hunters, it will surely be in the shooting 
season, and they will spend their time at their shooting 
ground if club members and will not stop shooting when 
they have enough for their table, but will take all they 
can get. I don't say they will all do this, but nine out of 
every ten wi'J. I have seen enough in eighteen years 
when shooting was good, but' never took more than I 
could carry; but I have seen some who would ship what 
they couldn't carry. 
Speaking about saving our game, the only way is to 
prohibit the sale of game at all times, and to stop shoot- 
ing over a dog, say for about two years; that will mul- 
tiply game. It is only the rich man that can afford to 
buy a dog for about $150, and it is not so hard to get 
game when you have a high-bred dog trained by a pro- 
fessional to point the birds for you. This is one way. 
The other way is, if the rich man wants it all, to put a 
$50 license for hunting, and you will surely have it all. 
Don't worry; we can't go hunting next fall on account 
of not working full time this winter ; that is how we have 
to do. On the other hand, the rich man owns all the 
best duck marshes, high-grade guns, the dog, has the 
money and the time, and can hire men to push him 
around the lake or as a guide for big game. What more 
do they want? If there is not enough game around for 
them, let them leave the dog home for two years and 
they will have all they want. 
The $5 license is a good move and ought to be pushed 
along, for the reason that it will keep the boy hunter 
from killing song birds. If the license requirement in- 
cludes farmers, who do quite a little hunting, we will see 
that we will have a hard time getting permission to hunt, 
for the license farmers will want the game themselves, 
and will not let you hunt on their grounds. 
Wm. Horn. 
A Springf Swan. 
-A LARGE trumpeter swan, on exhibition at The Sports- 
man, is attracting much attention. The bird was shot 
on the Chemung River by Ralph Sartor. — Gazette. 
Why was the "bird" shot? We do not know; but we 
make the following conjecture: Chiefly because it was 
a stranger and was alive. Possibly it may be eaten. 
Probably not. Perhaps some taxidermist may make a 
more or less satisfactory "stuffing" of the fowl, and then 
being "set up" it will add another object to some home 
for some housekeeper to "dust" and move about and 
wish a thousand times it were out of her way. But this 
is an aside from the theme that held my mind and led 
me to put pen to paper. My tliought was of spring 
shooting. I am informed that recently some of the 
generous-minded sportsmen of this county (I hope none 
of them are "spring shooters") have at considerable cost 
purchased and released in various parts of the county a 
quantity of quail. This I am very glad to learn. But 
how sad it would be if just at this mating and nest- 
building season the desire to "kill something" should 
lead some impulsive young man to destroy these quail. 
Every death of bird or fowl in the spring cuts off the 
hope of increase in the autumn and is a step toward the 
extermination of our feathered friends. The spring 
migration toward breeding grounds and nests should be 
sacredly protected by a public sentiment which should 
frown upon and even punish the use of firearms against 
any migrant. 
The successful shot at that swan cuts off the hope of 
how many well-grown young cygnets for next Novem- 
ber? Says Rowland Robinson, than whom no truer 
sportsman ever lived: "Farmers do not kill their breed- 
ing ewes in March nor butcher cows that are to calve in 
a month; it does not pay. Why should sportsmen be less 
provident of the stock they prize so dearly; stock that 
has so few care-takers, so many enemies? Certainly it 
does not pay in the long run." May the day soon come 
when the tired swan, or goose, or <iuck, stopping a mo- 
ment in its long flight to bathe its tired wings in the 
cool water of the river; to drink and perchance to nibble 
a little at some early springing greenness, shall be left 
in peace, to be admired in the gracefulness of its aUve, 
alert, personality, and wished a hearty godspeed when it 
lifts itself again for the long flight to its boreal nesting 
place.— T. A. W. in Elmira (N, Y.) Advertiser, March 
29. — 
'Tittle Bat.** 
MoRGANTOwN, W. Va. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Announcement was made in your colums of the shooting 
of "Little Bat" at Crawford, Neb., in December, by 
Haguewood. 
The trial of Haguewood has just taken place, and he 
has been acquitted. 
Discussion as to the justice or injustice of the case 
would be out of place here, but there is at least some 
righteous indignation at the result. 
Although a Sioux Indian "Bat" was a true friend of 
the white man, being actively employed in the service 
of the Government ever since he was "old enough to eat 
beans," to use the expression of one of his army friends. 
He had served many years as chief of scouts, in which 
capacity he had rendered invaluable service to the Gov- 
ernment. 
He was held in high esteem by Generals Miles, Crook, 
Brooke and many others who personally knew him and 
his achievements. He was among the few who were left 
of the "old boys" of Indian fame, and to think of his 
being "wiped out" in such an ignominious way, after 
facing so many perils, seems hard. Possibly few men. 
living to-day have as interesting a history as he, when 
we refer to frontier life and adventure. When I saw him 
and hunted with him in 1893 he had a record of eighty- 
four bears, all of the big Rocky Mountain type, and he 
told me he hoped to round up his hundred before he 
went "over the range." He was of medium stature, but 
very heavily built, weighing perhaps 180 pounds. His 
feats with the rifle among game and of trailing were 
wonderful. Although killed in a saloon row, he was 
buried- with all the honors of a military officer. 
Emerson Carney, 
The Plank and the Ptess. 
J'rom the Cumberland {British Columbia) N'&ivs, 
The various game associations in the Province, and 
sportsmen generally, are awakening to the fact that our 
game must have better protection if there is to be any 
sport for the future. Various remedies are suggested, 
and one issue is the taxing of all guns, the money thus 
collected to be applied in paying some wardens in dif- 
ferent sections. There is a diversity of opinion regard- 
ing the wisdom of this step, as it is urged that certain 
people, such as prospectors and others who may have 
to depend on the gun at times for a meal, would be 
unjustly taxed. However, this perhaps could be ar- 
ranged. The News some time ago advised the prohibit- 
ing the sale of all game. Gallinaceous game birds 
should certainly have this protection. The Victoria 
Times and other papers reprinted some of our articles 
and commended our suggestions. Our neighbors in the 
United States, and especially in the East, have long since 
