606 
FOREST AND STREAM 
A REAL GUN 
L C. Smith New] Designs With Hunter One 'Trigger For 
TRAP and FIELD 
With the characteristics'of the Thoroughbred written all over it. This means it will win. Kindly let us mail you our new 
catalogue showing perfect illustrations and descriptions of all grades 
PRICES $25.00 TO $1,000 
Manufactured JJUNTER ARMS COMPANY ft Tt 0t1 Y. 
years will have to find an outlet to the markets 
of the world via a Pacific Coast port. 
This being practically a virgin country, a 
traveller naturally has many obstacles to over¬ 
come. The Government wagon-road between 
Edson and Grand Prairie, a distance of roughly, 
240 miles, is fairly good in places, but has suf¬ 
fered from exceptionally heavy freighting be¬ 
tween those points, but the settlers despite those 
obstacles, are all highly pleased with the pros¬ 
pects. Sparsely timbered, none of the land off 
the main wagon-road presents any difficulties, 
so far as clearing goes; in fact, the timber will 
be an advantage to those going in to build up 
their future homes, much of the lumber being 
suitable for fencing and building, while the re¬ 
mainder will provide fuel for many years to 
come. 
Leaving Pouce Coupe, I continued my journey 
through the Nose Mountain country across the 
Cut Bank River over the foothill’s into Pine 
Pass through the Rockies, to within a few miles 
of a point I had reached last summer when 
making a trip from Bella Coola over the pro¬ 
posed route of the Hudson Bay and Pacific Rail¬ 
road. Excellent as the agricultural and mineral 
possibilities are from the coast inland to this 
point, I believe the further one goes into the 
Peace River country the indications become 
more encouraging. In addition to the farming 
prospects, mineral, oil, coal and gas are found 
in commercial quantities. Along all the streams 
and river banks outcroppings of lignite and bitu¬ 
minous coal are in evidence, while in the foot¬ 
hills good anthracite 'has been found and only 
awaits development. To this end limited coal 
areas have already been secured by the Canadian 
Pacific Railway and Canadian Northern Rail¬ 
way and other railroad companies operating in 
the district, and I am told that financiers from 
the States, who have received very encouraging 
reports, intend sending a good deal of capital 
in early next spring. 
At Peace River Landing, a lively little city is 
springing up with great activity. Here the ranks 
of the pioneers have recently been swelled by 
the coming of hundreds of new settlers in ad¬ 
vance of the railroad, which is now being con¬ 
structed with all possible speed along the banks 
of Lesser Slave Lake to this point. As a strat¬ 
egic and commercial center this town has great 
possibilities, being surrounded by an extensive 
territory naturally adaptable for stock-raising 
and agricultural pursuits and noted for coal, 
gas, oil and mineral wealth. 
From here, going directly south over eighty 
THE BIRD BOOK 
MALLARD 
132 . Anas platyrhynchos. 23 in. 
Male.—Head, green; speculum purplish-blue; bill 
olive-green; legs orange; eyes brown. The female most 
closely resembles the Black Duck but is lighter colored, 
more brownish, and the speculum, or wing patch, is 
always bordered with white. This species is one of 
the handsomest and most valuable of ducks. It is the 
cogener of the domestic ducks, and is largely used as a 
table bird. 
Their food consists chiefly of mollusks and tender 
grasses. These they usually get in shallow water by 
“tipping up,” that is, reaching the bottom without 
going entirely under water. They also visit meadows 
and the edges of grain and rice fields for food. 
Notes. —A nasal "quack,” often rapidly repeated when 
they are feeding. 
Nest/ —Of grass, lined with downy feathers, concealed 
in tufts of grass near the water’s edge. The C to 10 
eggs are huffy or olive-greenish ( 2 . 25 x 1 . 05 ). 
Range.— Breeds from the northern tier of states 
northward; winters in southern half of the U. S. 
FOREST AND STREAM, 22 Thames St., New York 
City 
miles of splendid agricultural country, I came 
to Grouard, a little town at the head of naviga¬ 
tion on the Lesser Slave Lake, which, consider¬ 
ing it is several miles off the railroad now being 
constructed by Klondyke J. D. McArthur, of Win- 
nepeg, has made tremendous strides since last 
summer, and the settlers there are confident 
that before long a second railroad will tap this 
section of the country and bring the present 
town of Grouard into direct communication 
with Edmonton, thereby giving the town access 
to all the markets of the Dominion and the 
States. 
HIS FIRST GUN. 
By Alec Wardour. 
As a small boy one of the real large desires 
of his heart was to possess a gun. This need 
is typical of all red-blooded boys in the country 
districts, the sporting instinct semes to be born 
in them as it was in him. So that instinct 
prompted him to wish for a shot gun that should 
be all his very own. His to have, to hold, to 
fondle, to clean, to shoot, to gloat over. There 
were family reasons why he should not have it. 
Another boy might start proudly away from 
home with musket over the shoulder that sup¬ 
ported the powder-horn, while the other would 
be decorated with the strap of the game-bag 
it upheld; this was usually a be-netted and 
most be-tasselled affair, the outward badge of 
the departing sportboy’s inner expectations. 
Such a showy parade of hope outstarting 
fieldward was not for him. His name was A 1 
for short. He had a dainty lady mother in 
whose sight a gun was only a rude instrument 
of destruction to be dreaded and kept from the 
hands of her children. A 1 loved a gun but he 
loved his sweet mother more. Her dictum that 
no guns were ever to be in the house, made the 
owning of one an impossibility for him. She 
never forbade him to shoot with others. She 
might have thought that would be asking the 
impossible in that country. This left him free 
to accept offers to try a shot with boyish com¬ 
rades, and with a quiet heart to bang away with 
the gun of a companion. Though this was ex- 
hilerating be felt it was slow to what the shoot¬ 
ing of a piece of his own would be, one that 
would not have to be given over to the hands 
of its young owner immediately after she shot. 
Jim, the proprietor of one particular spurt of 
death, carried the reloading materials- A 1 with 
hungry eye would watch Jim tilt up the powder 
horn until the necessary quantity would be meas¬ 
ured in the tube at its mouth, which he emptied 
into the barrel, then after the home-cut wad 
or more often a bunch of paper had been 
rammed down good and hard and plenty on 
top—he recalled how frightfully some of those 
boy guns kicked—came the measuring of the 
shot in the gauge at the mouth of the shot- 
pouch, the emptying of its measure down the 
barrel ringing on the powder-wad to drop diill- 
thudding. 
All these old-time sporty sounds, his memory 
brings back visions of brown fields full of hope 
of game, over-arched by the white-laced Autumn 
sky. In the distance are patches of woods. The 
nearest meadow is threaded by a small stream 
flowing into and from the little pond in the 
middle. This tiny pond was his reliance to get 
