FOREST AND STREAM 
607 
—somehow—the little fish needed to stock his 
aquarium-to-be sometime. Another of his boy 
heart-longings destined never to be. 
Farther along his life’s trail, but while still 
a small boy, there came into his life—-he can 
see by memory’s charm—the tall figure and dark 
brown shining, smiling white teeth showing face 
of the always good-natured young colored man, 
Charlie, from “New Jerusalem,” engaged by his 
father as coachman and general servant. 
Charlie was a sportsman; his gun came with 
him but in deference to the family susceptabil- 
ities, he kept it hidden in the barn. 
A 1 and Charlie spent many happy times on 
Saturdays gunning together; taking turns at the 
carrying of Colored Charlie’s piece of artillery. 
Remembrance makes the length of the barrel 
of that single muzzle-loader stretch out to 36 
inches. But if the twist was in the barrel or 
in the memory can’t be said sure at this some 
late time. 
The side of the stock of this serious weapon 
contained a little closet—closed by a brass door 
—for holding caps. Charlie was enthusiastic 
about the modern convenience of that little cup¬ 
board in the side of the gunstock. 
“Yassir,” he would say, “it’s a heap betta'h 
than to have to hunt in my clo’se for the box 
of caps every time.” 
A 1 agreed with him that it was the particular 
thing. 
Recollection runs through a list of his shoot¬ 
ing companions but his cousin Tom was the 
most closely connected—and endeared—to him 
by blood and shooting. Tom had guns and guns. 
Until they were separated by the moving apart 
of their families they kept the game shy within 
a large radius. After that the big city for Al. 
Years after, Tom came on from Chicago 
bringing a battery of swell hammerless guns to 
go with Al on a shooting and yachting trip, Al 
to do the skippering. The arms were all of 
foreign make except one, a modest priced top- 
action hammer gun by a noted American maker. 
Al picked this out for his own use. Tom thought 
he did so because of not wishing to use one of 
his $300 English made and pressed him to use 
one. But Al stuck to the American, saying 
he really preferred it. It was so, too; the hang 
of it suited him. 
But the time between Al’s shooting trips were 
getting to be longer than the famous length 
between which caused the Governor of North 
Carolina to rise up and say something. As 
his cousin could “come on” from Chicago so 
was his time of pleasure with shotguns. But 
when the exigencies of business finally gripped 
Tom, it was all he could do to stay home; so he 
came no more and Al’s life thenceforth was 
shootless. 
At this time he was himself pretty much in 
the same state of being as to where he stayed, 
so it was buckle down to work for him. He 
wore eyeglasses and put the thought of guns, 
brown fields, shining water, resolutely from his 
mind. 
The years passed over his head, many were 
the vicissitudes and he never owned a gun until 
-—if this was done on the stage this act would 
be started to slow music—when living with wife 
and daughter in a bungalow perched on a hill¬ 
side of an island in one of the many channels 
of Puget Sound. One day a small schooner 
blew into the bay and he made the acquaint¬ 
The .22 Savage 
High Power Rifle. 
ROCKEFELLER’S BUFFALO GUN 
the .22 Savage High Power 
I N the old buffalo days they needed a 
16 lb. .45 cal. Sharps and 550 grain 
bullet to kill one of those giants of 
the plains. To-day a little 614 lb. .22 
cal. Savage and a 70 grain bullet drops 
a buffalo in his tracks. 
At his ranch at Belvidere, Kansas, 
Mr. Frank Rockefeller proved this 
when three Buffalo bulls were disposed 
of with three shots from a .22 Savage 
Hi-Power. 
The new .22 Savage Hi-Power 
drives its little 70 grain high-concen¬ 
tration bullet over half a mile per 
second. 
This terrific speed makes this gun 
shoot so flat that you needn’t change 
the sights to drop an' animal the size 
of a deer anywhere within 300 yards 
of muzzle. 
The soft nosed bullet explodes the 
flesh on impact, dropping heavy game 
in their tracks—even when hit “too 
far back.” 
Think of a gun that looks as though 
made for little squirrels but actually 
does the work on giant buffalo—then 
you’ve pictured the Savage Hi-Power. 
Write us to-day for full particulars. Savage 
Arms Company, 9210 Savage Avenue, Utica, 
New York. 
The .22 SAVAGE Hi-Power Rifle 
ance of a great trapper and bear killer character 
with a cabin full of guns from the highest 
power rifle to shotguns- 
He discovered that the greatest longing of 
Bill the trapper was to own a craft some better 
than the 20-foot water line length schooner he 
had built by rule of masked thumb on the beach 
at Juneau, Alaska, and which had got him 1,000 
miles to that Puget Sound island by God’s grace. 
Being an amateur designer, Al fixed him up 
all right with a drawing of the lines of the 
50-foot schooner his soul had been longing for. 
After doing well at the trapping on the island 
he sailed away without saying good-bye. Short¬ 
ly a letter and package came for Al from the 
big city by the Sound. The letter, like a high 
figured check, while in poor expressionless form 
as to language was far up the heights of splen¬ 
dor as to meaning. What was in that package 
was for Al and would he please send over the 
plan of the schooner. Sure, they went by the 
first mail. The gun—yes, it was a gun—was 
in payment. 
He unwrapped the piece—of a well-known 
good make—absently put it together, and worked 
the action while his mind went back over the 
years. The first gun he ever owned, first of 
his own, and he was 54 years old. Who can 
tell the swelling of his heart as he held it from 
him to gaze at. He would bring it to his shoul¬ 
der and as his eye saw the barrel he thought of 
the years that had intervened since his eye had 
done that before the long-ago last explosion had 
recoiled the butt against his shoulder. When 
was the last time in the days of long ago? 
Well, now, at last, he had a gun, so he lived 
happy ever after. Like Hoots’. 
Though he had trailed westward 3,000 miles, 
the bally exigencies had caught up with him 
again, and once more it was all he could do 
to stay home. 
His taxes were unpaid, a big store bill was 
up against him, and he was confined to the 
merest necessities of life for his family, to 
keep the bill from growing too fast. The gun 
came in the early Spring and was put away from 
the sight of his wife who was horribly timid 
about guns, their only use to her was to be 
kept out of sight. 
Once that winter when the daughter was about 
to go to the P- O. and store, he timidly, with 
a beating heart marked down for the store¬ 
keeper to see: “25-12 gauge No. 4.” But they 
came not back with her, and many end many 
a duck would come up from its dive wihtin easy 
shot from a seat on the beach, and he had a 
boat now to pick up any that might be hit. 
There are some old things in life that grip 
you so that at times it seems hardly worth while 
to keep on. 
Then his wife speaks up saying: “Why don’t 
you sell that gun upstairs, what good is it?” 
He told her gently: “I hope to shoot some 
ducks; have some meat for the house when I 
can get some cartridges.” 
’Though he spoke up thus bravely, in his heart 
he knew that fate had closed the avenues for 
him. 
Little his wife recked of the hurt she 
caused by her unfeeling, unknowing remark. 
His case was as though a maiden had longed 
all her pure poor life for a piano until she was 
over the fifty-year mark. Then, when fate 
should send her one, before she could learn to 
play on it she would have to sacrifice ft to keep 
alive. 
Ah! (there) but life is some hard, durn 
miserable heart crushing and soul wearying at 
times. 
Al was like the wooly wild Westerner: “He 
seen his duty and he done it.” 
His gun wrapped up and tied was lying on 
the table, his hand without his thinking rubbed 
down the stock through the paper. At the 
touch of the unseen shining walnut, his sense 
of loss was so great that a near sob rose in 
his throat before he could choke it down and 
