822 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Dec. 2, 1911. 
marksman, though I must say lie has always 
been successful in finishing wounded beasts for 
me since being supplied with a rifle of his own.” 
“You have therefore no reason to be dis¬ 
satisfied with your new innovation,” said Mr. 
Thorne. 
“None whatever; it has proved an even 
greater success than I anticipated,” replied Mr. 
Greener. “But to return to to-day, and to tell 
you how I had the better of McPherson. The 
wind has been rather against us for some time, 
and good deer have not been over-plentiful in 
Glen Guile of late. To-day we were almost 
abandoning hope when we caught sight of a 
small herd, with a fine stag among them, lying 
within two hundred yards of our boundary. We 
at once began the stalk, but on a near approach 
found cover to be anything but good. The 
ground was bare as a billiard table, and we 
had to wriggle forward on our stomachs like 
serpents. All we had to hide us from the deer 
was a single low, little hillock, and this we 
eventually managed to reach undiscovered. The 
deer were lying, and Mac, drawing my rifle from 
the cover, handed it to me in order to be in 
readiness. Then he took his own weapon from 
the gillie, to be ready to shoot should the stag 
not fall dead to my bullet, for I did not care to 
risk his falling dead on our neighbor’s ground, 
as he has already proved himself rather fas¬ 
tidious about the boundaries. 
As McPherson drew himself forward to the 
edge of the hillock, he rather incautiously ex¬ 
posed himself to view, and the deer, springing 
to their feet, rushed up-hill full gallop. 
“ ‘There he is, broadside in the middle of the 
herd,’ whispered McPherson, “and, though a 
good hundred and fifty yards off, I took quick, 
though careful, aim and fired. The smack of 
the bullet at once told me I had hit. 
“‘You’re into him, sir,’ said Mack, as, raising 
his rifle, he, too, fired. A calf dropped to the 
shot. The stag, however, only went forward 
about anothed twenty yards when he also 
toppled over. On going up to him we found 
that my bullet had split his heart, for you 
know that an animal hit there always runs some 
little distance before he falls. Of course. I did 
not lose the opportunity of taking down Mac a 
peg over his marksmanship. He did not say 
much, but his rueful looks spoke volumes. His 
shooting is not, however, often so wild, and I 
could see that he felt my good-natured banter 
rather keenly. I therefore desisted, and, pro¬ 
ducing the whiskey flask, gave him a good dram, 
which somewhat cheered him up. Yet I can see 
that his bad miss—for it was a very bad miss— 
still rankles in his mind, for Mac does not relish 
anyone having so clear a superiority over him 
as I had to-day.” 
H« ^ H* H< sfc 
Almost at the same instant that Mr. Greener 
was narrating his experiences in the smoking- 
room, the same story, with very decided varia¬ 
tions was being recounted in the gun-room. 
The work for the day being over, keepers and 
gillies had assembled in the latter-named apart¬ 
ment, where, amid volumes of black twist to¬ 
bacco smoke, they freely criticised the sport of 
the past day. 
“That’s a gude beast ye got the day, McPher¬ 
son,” remarked one of the grouse keepers. 
“Ay,” laconically responded the head forester, 
a lank and wiry Celt, whose head and face were 
adorned with an abundance of fiery red hair, 
and in whom seemed to be contained in concen¬ 
trated form all the calculating powers of his 
calculating race. 
“Ay, a gude beast,” he slowly repeated, as 
he emitted a dense volume of smoke from amid 
his _ hirsute appendage; “but, I’m thinkin’, 
Maister Greener has mair than himsel’ to thank 
for havin’ him bangin’ in the larder this nicht.” 
“Was it you that shot him, Mac?” questioned 
one of the gillies. 
“Weel, ye see,” replied the Celt, blowing an¬ 
other cloud of smoke, and altogether ignoring 
the pointed query put, “the afternoon was weel 
spent afore we saw the deer, and, tho’ they lay 
on bad stalking gr’und, we couldna wait for 
their shifting, as darkness was coming on. 
When we got near them I fand, as I expected, 
that there was michty little cover. Ae wee 
hillock was a’ there was to keep the deer frae 
seein’ us. Noo, Maister Greener’s a muckle 
man, an’ awfu’ bad at keepin’ oot o’ sicht. In 
fac’, ye needna try to tak’ Maister Greener 
where ye couldnt tak’ a forty-gallon barrel. 
Aye at the end o’ a stalk I say to masel’, ‘Mac,’ 
says I, ‘could ye tak’ a forty-gallon barrel up to 
that place without the deer seein’ ye? If I 
think I can, I tak’ Maister Greener forward; if 
I think I canna, I juist stop where I am.’ 
“I had doots if I could tak’ sic a barrel up to 
the hillock, but tocht maybe I could, so, after 
warnin’ Maister Greener to keep doon, I 
crawled forward, an’, sure enough, we got to 
the hillock unseen. Noo, I kent Maister Green¬ 
er wadna be lang where he was without lettin’ 
himsel’ be seen, and likewise that if the deer 
were disturbed they wad sune be ower the 
march, for they hadna far to go to be that. Sae 
I handed him his rifle, an’ took the ane he gives 
me to finish his wounded stags wi’ frae Donald. 
While I was doin’ this, Maister Greener shoves 
his head richt ower the tap o’ the hillock, to 
get a better look o’ the deer. Of coorse, they 
saw him, an’ before I got drawn forward again 
they were goin’ uphill as hard as they could 
gallop. They werena, however, above a hunder 
yards awa', an’, as the stag was running on the 
side nearest to us, about the middle o’ the herd, 
an’ quite clear, I told Maister Greener to shoot. 
He did so, but was too far back, for I saw a 
calf that was running at the stag’s heels get the 
bullet in the fore end. I saw that unless I shot 
we would lose the stag, for he was makin’ 
straight for the march. So I fired, and, just as 
I shot, the calf fell. ‘You’ve killed a calf,’ said 
Maister Greener. I gave nae answer, but kept 
my e’e on the stag. He didna go far when he 
stopped, staggered, an’ fell over. Then I minded 
what Maister Greener said about the calf, and 
thocht it would maybe be just as well to let 
matters follow the coorse they were takin’. 
“When we went up to the stag, Maister 
Greener, pointin’ to the bullet-hole, said, ‘That 
was a good shot, Mac. A galloping stag, and 
hit right through the heart. That was what 
made you think he was only wounded, for a 
beast hit there always runs some little distance. 
But, I say, you must have been far off the mark 
to kill that calf.’ 
“I knew as weel as he that a beast hit throo 
the heart runs a bit, but it never occurred to 
him to look whether the calf was hit there or 
not. Then he began to banter me about my 
bad shootin’. I hae nae doot Maister Greener 
believed every word he said, and it didna be¬ 
come me to contradict him, though I kent 
better. So I said nothing, but looked a wee 
glum like, and after he thocht I was gettin’ 
down-hearted he pulled out his flask and gave 
me a gude dram. Oh, aye! there’s sometimes 
both wisdom and profit in sayin’ naething, for 
my conscience canna accuse me 0’ tellin’ lies 
aboot that stag, at any rate. But I’m savin’, 
lads, it’s time we were awa’ hame to our beds.”— 
Shooting Times. 
GOSSIP ABOUT GUNS. 
The evolution of the game gun is, as may be 
seen by my previous remarks, an interesting 
study, and, like that of the steam engine, has 
been a slow and gradual process—quite different, 
indeed, from the motor car, which, ubiquitous 
to-day, was a rarity but a very few years back. 
Stephenson’s “Rocket,” the first locomotive on 
the rails, which earned lasting fame in the earlier 
part of its career by running five miles with¬ 
out getting off the metals, was a funny looking 
thing, if old pictures go for anything, but con¬ 
sisted, all the same, of funnel, boiler and tender. 
The “North Star,” one of the Great Western 
Company’s old broad gauge engines, and which 
was running up to 1884 or thereabouts, resem¬ 
bled the “Rocket” much more than a latter day 
locomotive of the “Atlantic flier” type as now 
seen on nearly every line. Just as striking an 
example is to hand when we compare a long 
single-barreled flint and steel gun of the early 
fifties with a single trigger hammerless ejector 
of the present day. 
I Want Some of 
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That is what you should say if you want to 
get from your dealer the newest and best thing 
in shotgun ammunition he has on his shelves. 
THE BLACK SHELLS are meant for the 
shooter who is not satisfied with just good shells, 
but who wants to take advantage of every 
improvement which will bring him better 
shooting results. 
The construction of THE BLACK SHELLS 
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there is no chance for the explosion gas to leak 
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Our NON-MERC URIC PRIMER is fast,unvarying, 
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shooter knows how disastrous to a good score a hang- 
fire of even the smallest fraction of a second may be. 
Give THE BLACK SHELLS a trial, it’s all we 
ask. They are in three classes: 
ROMAX, a black powder shell with 5 16 -inch brass. 
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and bulk) shell made. Has one-half inch brass. 
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ffi US. CART RID GE. )CCT > 
Dept. H LOWELL, MASS, U. S. A. 
It is customary or polite to say that old Joe 
Manton, the king of gunmakers, was an artist 
in design as well as a gunmaker with no equal. 
Admitting all this out of deference to then pre¬ 
vailing views (or out of respect for the opin¬ 
ions of the shooters of Manton's time, who were 
old noblemen or gentlemen), I make bo’d to ask 
if there is the slightest comparison between old 
Joe’s best work and that of a crack present day 
maker? And I also make bold to answer it in 
the negative. There are lots of old Mantons 
hanging on the walls or in the gun rooms of 
our country houses—I possess one myself, and 
a relative possesses another; comparison is there¬ 
fore practicable, but the result is disastrous to 
Manton’s reputation as an artist on fine lines. 
A best quality—for that matter Joe Manton made 
no other—gun of Manton’s make made for my 
grandfather is now in my collection, an 18-bore 
