390 
Forest and Stream 
shoulder knocked him over and he rolled 
down the rough rocks in a manner that 
I thought would ruin his skin. I dis- 
patched John at once for the horses and 
examined the kill. They were fine rams 
in different stages of development and 
typical specimens of what we wished to 
represent in a family group. After 
feasting my eyes on them I began tak- 
ing measurements and skinning them. 
When the guides came up with the 
horses I had one skinned out and the 
other two gorallocked. We packed them 
on the horses back to camp at dusk. I 
walked behind in deep meditation, turn- 
ing over the event in my mind, and try- 
ing to figure out just how it had all 
happened. I was certainly happy, for it 
was my first day hunting mountain 
sheep. 
O N August twenty-second we stayed 
in camp all day preparing the speci- 
mens, washing the blood stains off the 
white pelts and making death masks in 
plaster of paris of the faces of the rams. 
We all worked hard and it was late in 
the evening before everything had been 
thoroughly attended to. 
The next day there seemed little to be 
gained by rising before six A. M., for 
we were camped right in the game coun- 
try where sheep could be seen at almost 
any hour of the day. We had finished 
breakfast and cleaned up the empty 
dishes when John stepped outside of the 
tent to get some water. Suddenly he 
snapped out excitedly ; “Look at that big 
bear sitting on the hillside looking at 
us !” 
Instinctively I grabbed my gun, sat 
down in the opening of the tent and 
fired. The result was a grizzly rolled 
down the hill and fell in the creek a hun- 
dred yards below. I rushed after him 
and soon caught up with him as he tried 
to crawl away down the stream. Two 
more shots finished his career and I 
added one more bear pelt to the game 
bag. This made a total of eight bears, 
including the seven I had killed in May 
on the Alaskan Peninsula. On close 
examination he proved to be a young 
animal about three years old. Brown i 
had gone to look up the horses so I left 
a note telling him where to find the bear ' 
and what to do with it. Then John and i 
I proceeded on the sheep hunt. ' 
A warm sun shone down on us as ' 
we left the camp and we were lightly . 
dressed. The snow had entirely disap- 
peared from the grass-covered ridges. 
We climbed slowly over the steep hills 
but it was easy walking when once we 
had gained the top where w'e traveled 
from hill to hill over flat mountain pas- i 
tures. Two miles from camp the game I 
was spotted. I counted thirteen sheep in j 
all, some grazing close by, others on dis- 
tant hills. Johnnie pointed out one large < 
ram, and as I looked at him through the ■ 
glasses I found he was a handsome ani- 
mal, pure white with yellowish-colored , 
horns. We crept down behind the edge , 
of the hill, keeping carefully out of 
sight. At last we gained a point 175 ' 
yards from where the animal was graz- ' 
(Continued on page 416) 
OPENING THE SEASON ON RAIL 
THE WILD -OAT MARSHES ALONG THE CONNECTICUT 
RIVER PROVIDE GREAT SPORT FOR THE EARLY GUNNER 
T he last .shot had beeii fired, the 
last ounce and a quarter of 7)4 
chilled shot had whizzed out over 
the field, the scattered fragments 
of the last clay bird had settled in the 
grass. 
“Say, Mr. Stebbins, how about trying 
the bass over at Pachaug?” I inquired 
as we were packing our guns in antici- 
pation of leaving the club ground. 
“Have we got time?” he asked as he 
squinted at the late September sun now 
well down towards the horizon. 
“Plenty,” I answered. So we went 
fishing to wind up the day’s sport. 
At the pond we met our esteemed 
county game warden, Mr. Robert B. 
Chappell, and while conversing with him 
the subject of rail-bird shooting was 
mentioned. 
“I am going to try them in a week or 
so,” he informed us, “and if you would 
like to spend a morning going after 
them I will make arrangements for you.” 
We needed no coaxing and the follow- 
ing week he phoned me that on October 
1st he and a friend from New London 
were going to the Connecticut River and 
would be pleased to have our company. 
I thanked him and told him that we 
would be very much in evidence, well 
heeled with guns and shells. 
October 1st came on Saturday and a 
finer morning never happened, so it ap- 
peared to us. We packed our guns, mine 
a 16-gauge, friend Stebbins’ a 12. Our 
loads were No. 10 shot. Away we 
buzzed to* New London, where we 
dropped in behind Warden Chappell and 
his companion and then headed for 
Joshua Village, on the east shore of the 
Connecticut River. We made good time 
and soon were at the water’s edge. 
By GEORGE S. BROWN 
where everything and everybody were in 
readiness for us. 
Two launch parties were made up, 
two shooters and two guides or polers 
in each motor boat. 
“We got to get ’em on the high tide, 
boys !” said one of the guides. 
“Let ’er pound, then !” was our reply. 
Our guides cranked up their motors 
and up the river we started for the wild 
oat marshes where the rail frequent dur- 
ing high tide. Behind us we towed two 
narrow, flat-bottomed skiffs, each fitted 
with a stool in the bow for the shooter 
to sit on. It was a new game for both 
of us, friend Stebbins and I. We feel 
perfectly at home when we are on the 
trail of the wily ruffed grouse or quail, 
and we know how to act when woodcock 
are at home, but this shooting from a 
wobbly skiff while perched on a fairly 
high stool ; well, it was going to be new. 
“Are they getting many birds this 
season?” I asked my man. 
“Lots of ’em !” he replied. “Over two 
hundred have been taken out by our 
parties in the last three days. Hope you 
brought plenty of shells?” 
“We have 100 each. That should give 
us plenty of leeway in getting our limit 
of 35 birds each, unless we find that we 
can’t hit them at all.” 
1 rather fancy that our guides thought 
that it would take more than three shots 
for every bird we got. We didn’t know 
what we were up against, but we had 
a sneaking suspicion that we’d have 
some shells left when we quit shooting. 
“I had a chap out the other day who 
got the limit, all right,” my guide told 
us, “but he had to use every shell he had 
and then borrow some. He had a hun- 
dred to start with, too.” 
We sat tight and didn’t do any blow- 
ing. We knew what we had been doing 
at the traps the past three or four Sat- j 
urdays and just bided our time. 
C OON over along the western shore 
^ we heard a couple of guns banging 
away. “No use stopping over there !” 
the guide over in the other launch yelled 
to our men. “We’ll go up to the marsh 
we poled out yesterday.” 
Half a mile further along and we 
pulled in near shore and dropped anchor. 
Guns and shells were transferred to the 
skiffs and after the shooters had seated 
themselves on their perches the guides 
stepped in and started poling towards the 
marsh which bordered the shore. Each ; 
guide had a pole about twelve feet long j 
with a flat paddle nailed on the end to i 
keep the pole from entering the mud 
when the boat is being forced through 
and over the tangled mass of wild oats. 
This growth, which they call wild oats, is 
about six or seven feet tall and serves I 
to hinder one in sighting birds. 
All four boats entered the marsh 
abreast of one another and about seven- 
ty-five feet apart. We hadn't progressed 
a hundred feet before the shooting be- 
gan. And the most of it seemed to be at 
us. Further in the marsh and working : 
our way were two or three shooters and : 
for a few minutes they kept our locality i 
pretty well filled with number 10 shot. 
“Say,” I informed my guide, “you | 
just turn this boat around and get out i <* 
of this.” I 
“Right-0 !” was his answer. He had I 
been yelling at the top of his voice but 
it looked as if the other shooters were I ' 
going to drive us out. It was very easy | ' 
to tell when a gun was discharged direct- : 
