684 
bordered with heavy grass and briars, we ran 
into another large covey, which also flushed wild 
and followed the others. We soon got in among 
them, and up and down that ditch we walloped 
the Bobs until the shades of night came on to 
break up the sport. My companion caught most 
of the birds that came out his way and quite 
a number fell to his gun, I noticed, but the old 
FOREST AND STREAM 
setter and I pounded the briar patch up one 
side and down the other, and every now and then 
we dropped a Bob who exposed himself to our 
fire. Finally, just before it was too black to see 
the sight on the gun, a bird flushed before the 
setter and went straight away. We were standing 
not more than twenty feet apart, and both fired 
as one report, and the bird dropped, each think¬ 
ing the kill was his. We stopped with sixty- 
three birds and after digging dilligently in my 
deep pockets I found that I had just two scores 
on my companion and an interest in the last 
bird. My only advantage was in being a harder 
hunter and making more chances for myself, 
which is very much the style of hunting quail 
on the Delta cotton plantations. 
How Foxes Aided a Game Warden 
F EW sportsmen have any conception of the 
difficulties confronting a game officer 
whose duty it is to patrol and protect the 
game in at least one whole county. Imagine 
an officer having a “beat” with an area of about 
300 square miles to patrol and you can readily 
appreciate his problems. For all this, however, 
the writer is convinced that the work can be 
done fairly well anyway, if the warden is in¬ 
telligent, determined and enthusiastic in his de¬ 
sire to render good service to the cause. 
I undertook that task at a very discouraging 
time, knowing its handicaps, and, after about 
twelve years of hard field labor, believe that 
most of the difficulties can be surmounted. Dur¬ 
ing that period I had the experience of receiving 
all of the hard knocks, abuse and misrepresenta¬ 
tion incident to warden service, together with a 
few accidents, a narrow escape from drowning 
upon one occasion and from freezing on an¬ 
other, with a few other minor accidents, and 
yet I came out with my whole hide and don’t 
regret the experience one bit. If I were twenty- 
five years younger I should be happy to re¬ 
enlist in the service under the banner “Protect 
the Wild Life,” and do it all over again. The 
cause is worthy of the best there is in us. Risk¬ 
ing one’s life to protect game makes the job 
worth while. To save the life of one little 
robin at the hands of a murderous set of for¬ 
eigners I once placed my own in jeopardy and 
have ever since felt fully repaid for the effort. 
But that’s another story. 
I started in to relate how the foxes assisted 
me on a certain occasion. That is a narrative 
in itself, and I want to tell it in the hope that 
it may possibly be of some slight interest to 
Forest and Stream readers, because it was so 
much out of the ordinary course of events. As 
I have said, I had a whole county to patrol. My 
plan to make that work effective was simply this: 
I went into a different section every day and 
seldom was found in the same territory on two 
succeeding days. Also I made it a point to keep 
my movements secret and get into the woods 
by unseen routes. Then I would show up at the 
most unexpected places at the most unexpected 
times. This was what we termed in warden par¬ 
lance, “keeping the violators guessing,” and it 
worked very well, for poachers could never tell 
at what moment the warden would show up 
on the scene of their operations and catch them 
in the act of violating the game laws. 
However, at the time in question I found I 
had a new problem facing me. It was mid¬ 
winter, and the snow lay about four feet deep 
on the mountains. The deer were thus im- 
By Henry Chase. 
prisoned in various sections, and were at the ab¬ 
solute mercy of the game butchers who always 
take advantage of such conditions. Now, I 
knew it was utterly impossible to patrol that 
whole deer country under these circumstances, 
so I simply applied myself to one section where 
the deer were almost plentiful and depredations 
were sure to be worst. I found in this section, 
in an area of about twelve square miles, that 
there were something over a hundred deer 
yarded. The butchers were right after them, 
too. While I would be watching one end of 
my patrol lines they would kill a deer at the 
other end, and I would usually discover evi¬ 
dence of their operations several days after¬ 
ward. They usually waited for a snow storm 
to cover their tracks and thus make it difficult 
to follow them. At last, however, by patience 
and persistence, and aided by my good friends, 
the foxes, I uncovered the whole butcher plans 
in detail. 
I was going over my patrol when a storm 
had been on for several days. I saw many deer, 
but no evidence of human presence in that terri¬ 
tory. Of course, one had to travel on snow- 
shoes and this made tramping slow and difficult 
in the down timber lands. And the light snow 
would quickly obliterate all shoe tracks. I had 
almost completed my trip on this particular day, 
and was coming down an old logging road on 
the mountain-side, when suddenly I came upon 
a regular beaten runway of fox tracks, which 
were very fresh and crossing the road. In¬ 
stantly my suspicions were aroused, and I 
stopped and examined this trail. It was unusual 
to see fox tracks in that vicinity and I knew 
something out of the ordinary had occurred very 
lately, and since my last visit, to attract them 
to that locality. On closer inspection I found 
that the foxes bad crossed and recrossed the 
road, so it was simple to determine that the 
attraction was not far away. After following 
these tracks some distance I found that they 
ended at a large brush heap. Further investi¬ 
gation developed the fact that the foxes had 
gone in and out of this heap many times. Next 
I found blood, and then, after digging around, 
I uncovered pieces of deer hide, some deer hair 
and finally a leg bone gnawed clean. Then I 
dug into that brush heap and crawled into it. 
There I found parts of the head and hide of 
two doe deer. Here was a clue the foxes had giv¬ 
en me, and a hot trail for warden work, for the 
deer had not been killed more than twenty-four 
hours at the most. Instant work was necessary 
if the violators were to be apprehended. 
I now examined the surroundings of the place 
carefully, dug up the snow and inspected the 
trees. Presently I discovered where some sap¬ 
lings had been freshly chopped down, and this 
led to the place where the deer had been dressed 
and where the foxes had devoured most of the 
entrails but left the usual parts untouched to 
tell their story. After circling around I got the 
trail of the butchers and began following it 
rapidly. Twilight was coming on and I was 
compelled to hustle. Nevertheless, by the aid 
of many lighted matches I was able to continue 
on the tracks until they led me in the vicinity 
of a shanty near the base of the mountain. I 
could see that the trail led directly to this place. 
It was now dark, however, but there was just 
one thing to do and that was to get a search 
warrant and work fast. 
Back to the town I went post-haste. It was 
nearly midnight when I arrived there, but I im¬ 
mediately routed a magistrate out of bed and 
got my legal process. Then I hunted up a deputy 
warden who was a pal, and we returned near 
to the scene of operations and crawled into a 
hay-stack to get a little sleep and rest. When 
morning dawned we served our papers at that 
shanty and then there was certainly something 
doing. We dug around the place, while the in¬ 
mates protested their innocence and ignorance of 
the job, until we finally unearthed a couple of 
hindquarters or venison buried under the build¬ 
ing and presented these to our friends of the 
habitation. Then we arrested the shanty-keeper 
and two woodchoppers who were with him. 
After we had got them “with the goods on” 
two of the men confessed the whole plot and 
gave us all of the details of how the deer butcher¬ 
ing process bad been carried on in that neighbor¬ 
hood for some time. For this confession the two 
offenders secured immunity, but the third one 
received the full penalty of the law. And thus 
it was that the foxes aided the game depart¬ 
ment in breaking up violations in that section, 
and were of material assistance in saving the 
deer 'herds there from destruction during that 
severe winter. 
In the selection of the names Resolute and De¬ 
fiance the adherence to the eight-letter designa¬ 
tion is again evidenced as was the case in the 
successful cup defenders of past years, includ¬ 
ing the Reliance, Columbia, Defender and Vigi¬ 
lant. Yachtsmen are as a rule inclined to laugh 
alt the superstition of luck in eight-letter-name 
cup defenders, but the fact remains that of the 
original cup winner and the twelve defending 
yachts a majority have borne names containing 
eight letters. 
