(bet. 19, 1901.] 
POR£:ST AND STREAM. 
803 
hooting at Something in the Wood Adventures in Tropical America* 
3 
The: crop of dce:r-shooti!ig accidents — ill tlie sedse of 
maiming and killing of human beings — is already 
'ing- harvested. The morning papers record a case 
here a man up a tree watching for deer had his legs 
led full of buckshot by a man on the ground — pre- 
miably watching for deer also. 
And, when you think of it,' this portends a very seri- 
is condition of affairs — for the deer hunters. With the 
oods full of men, every mother's son of them, armed 
ith a .30-30 smokeless rifle, the only safe thing for a man 
) do would be to climb a tree — and, if we can believe the 
iport in the morning papers, that haven of refuge is now 
ken away. Hunters have gotten so alert that they even 
ok into the tree tops for deer. In the recent days of 
ack powder conditions were bad enough, and, unless 
le innocent hunter used due publicity, accompanied by 
lud shouting, he was apt to be mistaken for a deer and 
agged. The waving of an arm or the flapping of an 
ir covering of the shooting cap a distance away in the 
ndergrowth became a live, moving deer, and appealed 
) the deadly bullet. This situation was certainly bad 
nough as the season's crop of maimings and fatalities 
early proved. 
But now is the danger of the situation compounded, 
here was a limit to the black-powder-pro- 
elled ball, but who can tell where the steel- 
icketed .30 rifle ball finds its resting place? 
t is only necessary to run over the files of the 
aily papers during the deer season to read 
le story indelibly written in blood. No one 
; safe in the woods or vtpon the lake in a 
eer country infested with hunters armed 
nth the unlimited distance consuming .30-30 
nokeless. 
How many instances where a rusted, 
'eather-beaten rifle, the tattered remnants of 
lothing mingled with human bones have been 
ound in the forest after the winter's snows, 
tell the tale of the stray bullet, I do not 
now. but I certainly think the introduction 
f the small-bore smokeless rifle into the 
,'oods has made deer shooting as dangerous 
or the hunter as the hunted. 
How often does a man kill his deer in the 
'Oods a hundred yards aw^ay? At two hun- 
red yards in the brush or undergrowth how 
nany deer are killed? 
If from fifty to one hundred yards is the 
verage distance, then why take an arm into 
he woods that will kill at perhaps two miles? 
On the plains and among the foot hills 
vhere three hundred and sometimes four 
lundred yard shots are made, the smokeles^ 
ifle, with its low trajectory, is the right thing 
n the right place, and results are secured that 
ould not be had from the black-powder rifbe. 
This shooting at something in the woods 
hat looks like a deer's body by day or a 
leer's eyes by night will partially cease when 
uch maimings or killings are charged up 
igainst the man behind the gun as man- 
slaughter. The plea that "I thought it was 
deer" when refused by the coroner and the 
culprit bound over for trial will bear no 
weight and prove of no value as an extenu- 
ating circumstance. 
And in connection with this subject, how 
strange is it that the buck-fever-smitten 
hunter, shooting at the real thing with hide 
and horns, will primp his magazine empty, 
doing nothing further to the fleeing game 
than to bark the trees in his wake, and yet let 
this same Nimrod catch sight through the 
brush of a spot on the back of a hunter's 
corduroy coat as big as your hand and 
ping-g-g, he will send a ball home, hear his 
game fall, and, running to the spot, have his 
excited gaze met by a human being rolling in 
his death throes. There is a fatality about 
these situations, a sort of dead-shot marks- 
manship very hard to explain when compared with the 
skill shown when shooting at the live quarry. 
The unknown danger of the woods has kept many 
from enjoying the pleasure and outing consequent upon 
a deer hunt. As the season opens in Wisconsin and 
Minnesota, the numl)er of those killed or maimed by 
their fellow sportsmen compares favorably with the actual 
deer killed. The baldest case of accidental shooting I 
ever heard of was when two hunters had driven in a rig 
to the timber and had put their horse up in an old, log 
stable. They had tramped the woods all day and had 
gotten nothing. Returning to their starting point, as they 
stepped out into the clearing, they saw ahead of them 
through the darkness two "balls of fire" — which expres- 
sion '"goes'' for a pair of any kind of ej'es in the woods 
at night — and fired. And when they reached the spot 
they found that their faithful steed had thrust his head 
outside the stall window in anticipation of an early start 
for home, and received a bullet squarelj^ between the eyes 
for his eagerness. 
.\ man to .shoot in comfort and safety in the woods dur- 
ing the deer season should either encase himself in im- 
penetrable armor or should carry with him a phonograph 
tuned up well and charged with the latest rag-time, coon- 
■song music. 
Unless you can work your w?.y into the wilderness and 
there hunt your deer, where you can neither shoot the 
other fellow nor in turn be shot by him, it would be well 
to think twice before you tramp through a popular deer 
country. Charles Crist.-kdoro. 
DONT SHOOT 5 
until you SEE your deer — and see that ^ 
it is a deer and not a man. j| 
J' 
III.— A Turtle Hunt in the Tropics. 
VVhe.n one has nothing but corned meat in tins, it is 
really noticeable with what eagerness one starts on the 
chase, and when evening came, I was always ready to 
take my rifle and follow any guide who might be willing to 
lead the way. This was in .Spanish Honduras, on the 
coast near Cape Gracias. At our camp there was a negro 
called Big George, who stood six feet four, and knew all 
the country round about. Frequently, after sunset, he 
and I would go among the sand dunes looking for deer. 
We never got anything. Big George said I talked too 
much, but I am not so sure about that. 
One night we determined to follow the beach looking 
for turtles. It was a beautiful experience ; itnder the 
intense moonlight the sand looked like a pathway of 
silver stretching out in the distance, with the ocean and 
the jungle, one on either hand, each shrouded with the 
mystery of night ; from the ocean the sound of the waves 
breaking along the shore, and from the jungle the cries 
of wild animals — weird voices from creatures unseen. 
Strange surrovmdings, intensified by the presence of fine 
semi-naked Indians, who, following one after the other, 
went like shadows stealing silently along the sand ! 
danger ; around tis an ever-increasing company of sharks 
came, gathering closer ; some even brushed against the 
caiiot*, rocking it violently, while the efforts of the turtle 
threatetied to tipset ils every moment, arid once in that 
water there would haA^e been little chance for us. We 
were now nearing the bi-eakers, and the canoe began to 
race ominously. I called to the men to cut the ropes and 
let the turtle go. One seized the hatchet, but at that: 
instant the turtle turned down the coast instead of cross- 
ing the bar, and this gave the Indians a chance to reach 
the other shore, and we soon had the turtle hauled tip 
close by camp. That night he was made into soup, a 
whole turtle stewed in a great iron pot, and it was good. 
Francis C. Nicholas. 
DIDYMUS. 
On and on we went, our hopes frequently raised, to be 
followed only by disappointment. Sometimes it was a 
log glistening in the moonlight ; again a patch of .shells 
would so much resemble a turtle that our steps would 
quicken impulsively. Finally, Big George said it Avas of 
no use; the moon was too clear. But ju.st then some- 
thin»- unusually bright in the distance caught my atten- 
tionrand hurrying on, we saw that this time a really large 
turtle was just before us. resting quietly on the sand. 
Now all was excitement. Nearer and nearer we crept. 
The turtle, all unsuspect-ng. remained quiet ; then suddenly 
its head was raised for an instant only, and it started 
clumsily for the water. Immediately the Indians were 
upon it, and for a moment I could not tell which was In- 
dian and which was turtle. In the general confusion one 
man was sent rolling over and over at a blow from one of 
the flippers: in an instant he was on it again, and then 
the struggle was over; the turtle was turned on its 
back, hauled to a safe place, and we then triumphantly 
returned to camp. 
The next morning four Indians said they would brmg 
the turtle in with ropes if I would loan them. I thought 
they must be very strong, and rather doubted their ability, 
but I gave them such things as they wanted, and. taking 
mv rifle, followed, to see what they would do. 
',\fter a tramp of about three hours we reached the 
turtle, finding it unharmed and just as it had been left 
the night before. The Indians began at once tying up the 
turtle for the return to camp. I could not help admiring 
their ingenuity. A rope was tied to each flipper, where the 
turtle was allowed to crawl back to the water, where the 
Indians, holding the ropes from the shore, could guide it 
as they wished. We went toward camp \yith some en- 
thusiasm at the thought of the supply of fresh meat that 
was swimming along before us as Ave walked rapidly over 
the hard sand. 
Presently we came to the mouth of a river, where we 
all crowded in to a small canoe, one man holding the 
turtle, and three attemptin'g to paddle. But the turtle was 
too strong for us, and began at once dragging the canoe 
down the river toward the breakers on the bar. Here was 
Two Tales and Three Snake Stories 
There is a notable company of men in Missouri, belong- 
ing to the older generation, who may justly be termed 
paladins of good livers. They are anglers, hunters, travel- 
ers, story-tellers, bon vivants — real gentlemen of the old 
school. One of them will travel 500 miles to go a-fishing, 
and then go as far in the opposite direction to crack a 
joke. They are a secretive set, for the most part, and 
yet wherever one goes, and in whatever set of men, in and 
about St. Louis, he hears vague statements to the effect 
that "those old fellows know better how to 
have a good time than any other set of men 
in the world," It is said that they have hunt- 
ing and fishing places somewhere in the 
Ozarks that are practically permanent camps, 
no sooner vacated by one crowd than occti- 
pied by another. They have their own good 
time, hide it away in their memories and 
proceed to have another, and no outsider is 
any the wiser, unless, as was the case the 
other day, when the Judge sent for me to go 
with him out to Blanton's, some one of them 
becomes reminiscent. Perhaps the talk was 
started when he showed me six long and nar- 
row silver goblets, said to be the best recep- 
tacles for mint julips ever invented, and the 
like of which I had heard were possessed by 
others of that ilk for strictly utilitarian pur- 
poses, but which in the present instance were 
valued solely for their ethnologic interest. 
He said that one time, many years ago, 
three of them, so he had heard, were stop- 
ping at a primitive summer hotel in the far 
North, and had not been there long until the 
hotelkeeper recognized in them certain sport- 
ive proclivities, which only needed encourage- 
ment and tutelage. Accordingly, he one day 
proposed to teach them to play poker, assert- 
ing that it was the best game ever invented, 
and one which they were peculiarly fitted to 
enjoy. 
Thereupon he taught them how to play the 
game, explaining that two pairs beat one pair, 
threes beat two pairs, three of 'one kind and 
two of another beat two pairs, etc., and 
directh' they were at it with a pretty stiff 
limit and plenty of chips, and with the hotel- 
keeper in the game. Pretty soon the hotel- 
keeper got a big hand and raised the bet, the 
man next him raised the hotelkeeper and the 
man in front raised No. 2. Nothing loth, 
their host raised them back, and this pro- 
cedure was repeated several times, and then 
No. 2 raised the limit, when No. 3 "laid 
down" and the hotelkeeper, thinking his re- 
maining opponent must have "fours," reluc- 
tantly gave up also, whereupon No, 2 raked 
in the chips and threw down his hand, face 
up, as a beginner often does. There was not 
as much as a pair, in it, and the hotelkeeper 
exclaimed,, "Why, man! You oughtn't to bet 
that way on that kind of a hand. I ought 
to have had that pot myself. That hand's no 
good !" 
"Yes it is," vociferated the other, "it beats 
threes. It's two of one kind and three of 
another^ — two reds and three blacks." 
The trio were not getting as much chicken as they felt 
they were paying for, so' one day one of them said to 
the landlord: "I will bet five dollars I can kill four 
chickens at one shot." This seemed not rmlikel}^, and 
the landlord declined the wager until one of the others 
took him aside and said: "See here, you take the bet 
and we'll draw the shot out of his gun. He's been win- 
ning our money at that new game you taught us, and 
we want to get even with him." And they produced 
his gun — it was in the days of muzzleloaders — ^from which 
they drew the shot. The money was staked, and, when ' 
the" chickens got rightly bunched, the man blazed away 
and killed and crippled thirteen. The gun had been 
loaded with two loads of shot. They had chicken "to 
brtrn" for a week. 
When we were at Blanton's I asked him to tell his big 
snake story, and he proceeded to tell two of his own, which 
he vouched for, and another of Uncle Joe O'Banion's, 
which, I suppose. Uncle Joe will vouch for. 
"When I was a chunk of a boy," he said, "my cousin 
and I were killing rats one day at their corn crib, and, in 
doing so, were digging in the earth underneath it with 
sticks, when we saw the tail of a snake in a hole. One of 
us took hold of the tail and tried to pull- the snake out, 
but it wouldn't come, and then we both tried it, but 
couldn't budge it. So my cotisin said, 'You hold on to 
its tail while I go to the house .for the mattock, and we'll 
dig it out.' We dug that snake out and killed it. It was a 
black snake, and had six full-grown rats inside it, and Avas 
10 feet in length. It Avas the biggest snake ever killed in 
this part of the country." 
"Now, how long," he continued, "do a'OU suppose a 
snake can go without eating?" 
"Two Aveeks," I suggested. 
"Well, this is Avhat happened with me once. I was 
'markin out' corn, and the plow cut a snake clear in 
two at about the middle, all but a little piece of skin. I 
turned a big rock over on it and went on, thinking it 
would be dead before night. The corn was planted, and 
when it sprouted and was ready to plow, I came along 
I 
