Aug. 31, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
265 
Hunting Partridge Among Powder Magazines 
P ARTRIDGE, br’er rabbit and powder maga¬ 
zines—that’s an interesting combination for 
any sportsman to front, isn’t it? Open 
season, rabbits hopping along the trail in plain 
sight; squirrels galore, calmly eating sweet hick¬ 
ory nuts over tons of fulminate; partridge whir¬ 
ring up under the muzzle of your gun, and when 
you peep along the sights, instead of a whirl¬ 
ing bird you see this, out of the corner of your 
eye, in great red letters: “Danger! Keep Off; 
Powder Magazine.” Yet in spite of it all we 
had a good day’s sport and a good bag, too. 
This is how it happened: 
We were standing on a stump, up to the neck 
in a tangle of golden rod and brier. The hounds 
were singing their unmatchable rhapsody of a 
hot trail. “He’s coming down the old lumber 
By THOMAS TRAVIS 
“Git him?” said Sam. 
“No, did you?” 
“Nope; didn’t git a sight at the danged thing.” 
“What did you shoot at?” 
Sam rubbed his nose, scratched his head and 
grinned. “Well, doctor, it was this way: just 
a brown hole in the air what I shot at, ’n I thot 
it was a rabbit. But you shore ought to gotten 
yourn. He wan’t only lopin’.” 
“I shot at the woodcock, Sam. Didn’t you 
see them?” 
Again Sam rubbed his nose, looked off at the 
distant mountains and grinned. “D’you think 
they was woodcock down where you went, huh?” 
Away over the hill the hounds were still 
mouthing; the chorus rapidly dying down as the 
chase swept further and further off. “They’ll 
So we started. Ten miles through country 
lanes we purred. Over rustic bridges we rum¬ 
bled, along the Pequannock and Wanoche 
streams, through Pompton till at last we turned 
into a by-path and came upon the loveliest bit 
of wild land I had seen in many a day. 
No sooner had we turned Snob, the foxhound, 
loose than he put up a molly cottontail within 
five yards of us, and before we could snap the 
collars free from the other two, they had sprung 
from the auto and were off pell-mell with a yard 
of chain between them. Snob doubled the cot¬ 
tontail, which dodged under a log right in front 
of the beagles, Sport and Nell. With a wild 
yell, Sport jumped the log and Nell, with an 
equally eager howl went under. “Bang! bang!” 
I blazed away and Molly jumped a foot in the 
“a bird dog can't smell powder until after it’s discharged.” 
road,” said Sam, jumping from the stump. “You 
stay here and I’ll head him off at the crossing.” 
“Right,” said I as I cleared for action. “Here 
he comes!” Just ahead of the dogs, his ears 
laid back, hopping along as briskly as if at play, 
his little cotton tail fairly jerking with fun, came 
br’er rabbit with the beagles after him open- 
mouthed, yelling, humping their little bowed 
legs, and madly giving tongue in their effort to 
close the few yards between them and him. It 
was such a pretty sight that I paused a moment 
to watch. Then, things began to happen. Sam 
stepped on a pile of dry bush; out shot a brown 
streak with a white dot in it; right across the 
chase coming pell-mell down on us. “Wow!” 
said Sam’s gun; then, “Chir-r-r, chir-r-r,” right 
behind me, and I saw out of the corner of my 
eye two woodcock spring up from the birch 
not ten feet from me. Quick as a wink I turned, 
slipped and fired as I came down with a bump. 
“Bang, bang,” went my gun and “Bow” said 
Sam’s; then silence that could be felt as I 
crawled to my feet, recovered my hat and pulled 
the burrs from my hair. 
bring ’em round again all right, you see,” said 
Sam. But scarcely had he spoken when a dis¬ 
tant fusilade as of a dozen war men ambushed 
arose. 
Sam snorted, pulled the cartridges from his 
gun and sat down. “ ’Taint no use huntin’ here 
on ’lection day; see? That’s our rabbit gone 
all right. Let’s go home.” And as the hounds 
came panting back, he snapped their collars on 
and held them fast. “First thing you know 
somebody ’ll pepper the dawgs.” 
In the midst of our quandary a familiar auto 
came chugging along the old lumber road. It 
was my old friends Dilts and Steers of DuPont 
powder fame. 
“Well, doctor,” quoth Dilts, “what are you 
looking so glum about; anything wrong?” 
The situation was explained fully, fervently 
and at length. “Oh, that’s all right. Come on 
with us. We’re off to Steer’s reservation. 
Twelve square miles of wild land up at the 
powder works at Pompton. Can’t crowd you 
out there. The dogs will be all right, too. 
Safest place in Jersey on election day.” 
air, dry leaves flew in a cloud where the double 
explosion of Dilts’ gun was blended with a 
frenzied cry from Steers. “Got him!” said 
Dilts. “But for heaven’s sake, look at that!” 
Right where Molly was heading when D.lts 
picked her up was this huge sign: “Dangerous! 
Powder Magazine; Keep Off!” Needless to say, 
we did. 
Snob was called in, Sport and Nell were un¬ 
tangled and we were pushing further along the 
hillside away from the magazine when Snob gave 
a howl that sounded like grand opera after a 
high note. There were two rabbits hopping along 
the trail not twenty yards ahead. 
“Don’t fire toward the magazine,” said Steers; 
“the wads might raise Ned.” 
“Don’t fire at all,” said I, eagerly; in fact, 
pleadingly. “What’s the use. Two rabbits aren’t 
worth raising such a fuss about.” Sam, with 
one eye on the blue sign, the other on the rab¬ 
bits, was sidling off like a crab after bait, to get 
a flank shot. “Hold on, Sam’l,” I yelled. “Look 
here, d’you want to blow the dogs up?” That 
fetched him. 
