428 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Oct. 4, 1913. 
veloped, and I think it can still be considered 
one of the best cartridges of its class. The 
.44-40, on account of its associations with our 
own West, is probably the classic of the 1873 
issues, but the .32-20 will outlast it in service¬ 
ability ; in fact, the day of the .44-40 seems about 
over, in many sections. 
When we first came to Fort Clark, Texas 
(about forty-fire miles from here), in 1912, we 
found ourselves in a country where the average 
size of the cattle ranches is from 50,000 to 100 ,020 
acres. Wherever’there was water, the shooting 
was excellent, and I can say that the ranchers 
have always been extremely hospitable with the 
soldiers, and have given them permission to hunt 
in every case where they were asked. This is 
not a hunting locality for everyone, however, 
as the deer in this part of the country are fre¬ 
quently seen with cattle when in the open, and 
many steers have been killed and crippled by 
careless hunters from the cities. This has re¬ 
sulted in hunters being barred from nearly all 
the big ranches for several years. On this very 
account the shooting has been all the better for 
the men of this troop, whose camps have been 
stretched along the Rio Grande. In every case 
the owner has been glad to see the men, as the 
Mexicans in .the northern part of the State of 
Coahuila frequently cast longing eyes over the 
river at the fat American cattle. A camp of 
soldiers is welcome, accordingly, and their pres¬ 
ence has undoubtedly kept raiders away from 
the border ranches. The men all have permis¬ 
sion to shoot, and at one camp, in charge of 
Corporal Osborne, forty miles down the river, 
every man in his detachment killed a deer in 
a single week without having to go more than 
a mile from camp at any time. 
Peccaries or wild hogs (known as javelinos 
among the Mexicans) are supposed by many to 
be extinct. Yet they are seen in fair numbers 
on all the ranches below here. In our troop 
store here we have some of the hides of these 
little animals hanging on the wall. The men 
have polished the hoofs nicely and the bristles 
look sufficiently like hair to perplex any person 
who has never seen a peccary. 
Corporal Klein, while out shooting with 
Private Young in a camp about thirty miles 
away, stumbled on a drove of eight or nine pec¬ 
caries who lived up partly to the traditions of 
their tribe by refusing to run away at first, 
simply squealing, rooting savagely at the ground 
and scampering threateningly about in circles. 
When the soldiers cut loose with their repeaters 
and laid out three of them, the others decided 
discretion was best and decamped. The meat 
was offensively strong and none of the men 
relished it. 
I have often seen references to some case 
that now seems classic in hunting annals, where 
a deer was killed with a .22 short. This feat 
was duplicated on the Bates and Bailey ranch 
near here in the deer season last winter by 
Private Gruber, of Troop F, who used an ordi¬ 
nary little pump action .22 repeater of the $8.50 
type. He was within thirty yards of the deer 
and hit the creature near the corner of the eye 
as it turned its head to look at him. Presum¬ 
ably the bullet followed the channel of the eye 
to the brain, but he neglected to examine the 
wound and could give me no testimony on this 
point. Private John J. O’Neill, of Troop D, 
using .22 long rifle cartridges, brought down 
another deer at equally short range with a shot 
behind the shoulder. As the animal was still 
struggling when he got to it, he killed it with 
his army .38 Colt', so I presume this cannot be 
credited as another deer for the .22. He was 
using a cheap single shot rifle, hence his resort 
to his six-shooter for the second shot. This epi¬ 
sode occurred on the Indio ranch, twenty-two 
miles from here. 
We have heard several times that wild 
turkey are reasonably plentiful in this region, 
but not a man of our troop has ever seen one 
since our arrival. Blue quail are plentiful, and 
the men on patrol enjoyed many abundant dishes 
of this bird in season last year. Both cottontail 
and jack rabbits are so thick that it is no sport 
in shooting them, and they quickly pall upon 
the palate, anyway. Along the pecan groves that 
line the little streams emptying into the Rio 
Grande we got many ’possum last year and had 
some fine dishes of squirrel, enough for the 
entire troop. 
The men are now anxiously looking forward 
to the coming shooting season, as their camps 
are literally surrounded with the small game I 
have mentioned. Private Kelly and Private 
Harvey have both killed wildcats, and this is 
about the only dangerous game left here, if we 
rate the coyotes as not worthy of consideration. 
I had an opportunity to borrow the little .22 
Savage high power for use on these vermin, and 
it surely is the medicine gun for them, as they 
generally will allow a man to approach within 
range on the ranches along here where they have 
not been much disturbed. 
There is one thing that has greatly im¬ 
pressed all of us here—that is the apparent utility 
of the .25 Colt automatic cartridge w'hen used 
in the little pistol for which it is prepared. 
Three of the sergeants in this troop have tried 
out the little weapon and are astonished at its 
power. 
Sergeant Conely, who has hunted with me 
in Guam, in Hawaii, in the Philippines, and in 
the mountains of California, and who has some 
of the best bags in the troop to his credit, has 
been making such tests as he coykl with the car¬ 
tridge and thinks that it would fill a long felt 
want if an automatic rifle of light weight were 
constructed for it. The cartridge seems perfectly 
accurate and has just enough hitting power to 
be of service for almost any condition that may 
arise down here. Practically every deer that was 
killed last year by our men could have been 
landed by the use of this cartridge, as they were 
all shot at short range in the brush along the 
banks of the Rio Grande. 
It has the stopping power that the .22 long 
rifle lacks, and I think myself that some box 
magazine rifle, like the new automatic .22 Savage, 
could be adapted to this cartridge and be a very 
desirable and effective little weapon. It w r ould 
be ideal for ducks on a narrow stream like the 
Rio Grande and also on the “tanks.” as the 
scattered water holes of the cattle ranches are 
called. 
In this same connection I believe that the 
.32 and .380 cartridges designed for the Colt 
would be more serviceable for automatic rifles 
than quite a number of other loads now widely 
advertised as ideal hunting combinations of ap¬ 
proximately similar power. They w-ould be es¬ 
pecially good in hunting at short range or for 
use in settled districts. 
Griz, old chap, let me fill one of your brain 
cells with the story of a little penny ante game, 
in which a six-foot black snake took the pot. 
The powder bunch was out for chickens down 
in Indiana, and after a good day’s killing, de¬ 
cided to get a bit of mental recreation by pass¬ 
ing the buck. We, that is, Jim, Ed, Ted, Bill, 
Mel and myself, with the owner’s permission, 
put up for the night in a barn that was older 
than the owner’s red eye, a libation of which 
we had sampled earlier in the evening, and this 
snake stuff didn't come from that bottle; it was 
a live Eden wrecker and no dream. We were 
working on a round of roodles, and the most 
avaricious slot machine would have envied the 
stack of pennies in the pot. Jim had raised, and 
Ed, who was moored to windward of the dealer, 
squinted his starboard optic like he was looking 
toward a diaphanous gown between him and the 
sun, when quietly and devoid of all ostentation, 
a black snake slid through a hole in the roof 
and dropped into the middle of the table. We 
all expected a “call,” but this wasn’t the desired. 
His snakeship coiled up and raised. Jim called, 
but he was so far away the black didn’t appear 
to hear him, and naturally snaked the pot. Ed, 
whose mind runs to trapshooting, stood down 
in the corner of the field calling, “Pull! pull!” 
and waiting for the snake to scale so he could 
score a leg on the Indiana championship, but 
Mr. Snake never paid any attention to him. He 
had dropped into the game, raised without being 
called, copped the pot, and changed a penny 
ante, five-cent limit to a no limit game; that is, 
there was no limit to the distance from the barn 
the five ballistics halloed, as the candle burned 
out and left the barn in darkness and the snake 
in the pot. 
Grizzly King. 
Italy’s Village Eyries. 
Most of the villages of Southern Italy are 
situated at the extreme summit of lofty moun¬ 
tains, being so constructed for purposes of de¬ 
fense in the stormy days of long ago. In many 
cases these village eyries are far removed from 
the railroad, and are approached by means of 
winding roads and trails. So steep are some of 
these mountains, and so correspondingly tor¬ 
tuous the trails by which they are ascended, 
that it may take as long as two hours to go a 
distance of little more than a mile as the crow 
flies. One of the most fascinating of these 
mountain hamlets is Anticoli-Corrado. The pic¬ 
turesqueness of this little village, with its 
ancient archways and winding step streets, is 
noted throughout Italy, and the charming peas¬ 
ant types to be found are greatly in demand 
among artists, who flock here in numbers dur¬ 
ing the summer months.—Wide World. 
