Oct. 25, 1913- 
FOREST AND STREAM 
515 
Another one of my brother arrows was lost 
in this manner: One fine morning the archer 
spied a large buzzard sunning himself on a rail 
fence about fifty yards from a cabin. The out¬ 
stretched wings of the great bird at once caught 
the archer’s experimental eye. 
“Why wouldn’t his wing feathers, if fumi¬ 
gated, make good hunting arrow feathers? - ’ And 
getting the cabin between him and the. somber 
bird, he crept up and let drive. It was a fair 
shot, but the big bird with wings spread made 
it appear nearer than it really was, so the arrow, 
on its last flight, hit at the bird’s toes and glanced 
—where? The archer after losing an arrow 
would usually tell certain little nigs about the 
shot, place, etc., and offer a reward, but rarely 
with any success, for when an arrow gets lost, 
it just seems to fade away into the spirit land— 
where all good arrows go. The archer soon be¬ 
came a very good shot with us, and more than 
once he has demonstrated the possibilities of the 
long bow and broadhead to certain friends of 
the teasing and doubting Thomas variety. Once 
at a country store, a rustic insisted that the 
archer be made to bring forth his bow and 
arrows and shoot some. They were hid as much 
as possible, but this wiseacre saw the bow bag 
in the buggy and at once started a lot of noise. 
“Betcher kain’t hit my ole hat ten yard off 
hand,” at which the archer unlimbered, selected 
an arrow made to bisect rabbits, and carefully 
let drive. The Y-shaped blades of the arrow 
split a four-inch hole in the old greasy lid, much 
to the noisy person’s discomfit, and much to the 
merriment of the crowd. However, he insisted 
that it was an accident (it might have been) and 
put it up about twice the distance and insisted 
on laying a bet of a whole half dollar that I 
couldn’t hit it. A friend took the bet before the 
archer knew it, so it was up to him to save that 
four bits. But the archer god must have been 
there that day, for again the great Y-shaped 
blade cut the old hat, and the archer’s reputa¬ 
tion was firmly established. But to complete the 
take-down of Noisy, someone bet him that the 
archer could hit his tin bucket at fifty yards once 
out of three shots. The distance was stepped 
off down the road, the bucket, a good-sized milk 
pail, was set up, and all drew near for the shoot. 
Again luck sped the arrow, and the bucket rolled 
over in the sand, and the archer’s tormentor or 
teaser himself became the one laughed at. 
Will Thompson once wrote an article about 
old graybeards, prevaricating about the shooting 
they did when they were boys, and tell big tales 
about the phenomenal shots made by Indians. I 
suppose every bowman has such trials. The 
writer has heard men who didn’t know what the 
feather was for on the arrow, tell of shooting 
they had done, or that they had witnessed that 
would make Robin Hood turn over in his grave 
and blush with envy, and make the archer’s good 
lucky shot pale into insignificance. Another 
thing that never fails to “rile” him up is for 
someone to ask him if his is an “Indian bow.” 
The very idea! 
The writer will state right here his views on 
the subject of Indian archery, after having given 
it considerable study and investigation. 
Centuries of continual association naturally 
made the Indian a very good shot with the bow 
—good enough to supply himself with meat when 
the woods and prairies teemed with game, and 
good enough to slip to the corner of a cabin 
and pot the unsuspecting pioneer; but not to be 
compared with our own forefathers who drew 
bow at Cresey or in Sherwood forest, or not 
even to some few of our present day archers 
who bend over a desk six days out of the week. 
The writer calls to mind a pair of big strong 
Kansas lawyers, who ride out of Atchison on 
Sundays in a racy automobile to shoot jack- 
rabbits with the bow; a certain down East 
Yankee athlete from one of the big colleges, 
who has been to England to show them how; 
and a spry old gentleman, who is now a leading 
jurist of the Pacific slope, as well as writer, 
poet, soldier, and a man who has in time lost 
several canoe loads of arrows in the Floridan 
wilds. Now, I believe these gentlemen could 
take to the woods to-morrow with their bows 
and make just as good living under any condi¬ 
tions as the same number of Indian archers. 
And after a year’s training in the great out-of- 
doors, they would compare favorably with any 
four redskins that ever bent a bow. 
Study the Indian’s archery tackle (Uncle 
Sam owns a carload of it), also get acquainted 
with the English low bow and its arrows, and 
then you can understand why the archer gets 
“riled up” when some human question mark asks 
if my good English lance—the product of eight 
centuries of Anglo-Saxon-Norman bowmen—is, 
“er Injun bow.” 
Speaking of losing arrows: When an 
archer spends considerable time and money on 
a set of hunting or roving arrows and gets fully 
(Continued on page 537.) 
- - 
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