Jan. 30, 1909 ] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
175 
“No, 1 never have, for I know how to handle 
her, but some other fellows have had some bad 
bumps from her. One of my boys went up to 
Mill Creek one evening to shoot at a flock of 
woodducks that came in there each afternoon. 
He lay down behind a rail fence and presently 
.saw the flock coming slowly down stream to¬ 
ward him. He waited until they were close and 
well bunched and then pulled trigger. About 
an hour later he appeared at the house with 
one eye swelled shut, his nose spread half over 
his face, and a big cut in his forehead where 
one of the hammers had hit him. He could not 
explain the cause of the accident, but thought 
that both barrels had gone off together. It is 
probable that he put the two loads into one 
barrel; the old gun always objected to this. 
“This same boy once found a rabbit in a 
scantling pile and lay down by the side of the 
pile to shoot. The rabbit was setting on the 
ground with its head sticking up through the 
bottom layer, and the boy thought he would 
shoot its head off. To aim he had to get his 
face down close to the gun, and when she 
went off, she kicked his nose nearly off, cut the 
head off the rabbit, tore a scantling in two, 
and set the lumber pile on fire. It was great 
execution for one shot. 
“The nearest I ever came to an accident with 
the gun in my own hands was one fall when I 
was trying to kill an otter that was using the 
little round pond below Ransom’s mill. It was 
nearly dark when I reached the pond one 
evening in November, but it was still light 
enough for me to see that something was 
making a great commotion in the water under 
the bank. The waves were running clear across 
the pond. I crawled close to the top of the 
bank and could see the upper part of a black¬ 
looking animal that was going back and forth 
along a big, bare tree trunk laying in the edge 
of the pond. I watched it for several minutes, 
and finally when it came out to the end of the 
log, where I could see it again, I fired. I got 
up quickly and stepped out to where I could 
see clearly, when a man with a big fur cap on 
his head straightened himself up on the log 
and asked me what I had shot. ‘My God, 
man,’ I said, ‘didn’t I shoot you?’ He said I 
had not, and then I learned that he had been 
trying to drown a rabbit out of a hole in the 
bank and had been carrying water from the 
end of the log that stuck out into the pond. 
I had shot at his cap. He could have dipped 
the pond dry without reaching the rabbit, for 
the whole bank was hollow, but I was so glad 
that I had missed that I gave him every en¬ 
couragement to keep on. I did not sleep much 
that night, and the next morning I went back 
to see why I had not killed him. Just on the 
edge of the bank in front of where I had been 
lying when I shot I found a small round stick, 
out of which I had taken a chip as big as your 
fist. This must have thrown the load over him. 
That fall Jake Swartz and I were trying to see 
which could make the highest record with the 
gun, and after the season was over, Jake said 
that I had won the bet, because I had had a 
shot at a man. But I tell you it was no joke 
to me.” 
Just then the Doctor’s wife called him, to 
say that one of his patients was dangerously 
ill again and needed him at once: but he 
lingered long enough to learn that Uncle Jim 
would watch an old groundhog’s hole; in a 
clover field that afternoon, and that if he suc¬ 
ceeded in killing the groundhog, he would skin 
it nicely and try to palm it off on his family for 
a ’coon. Charles Lose. 
In Pursuit of the Skunk.—II. 
We decided to continue the chase at day¬ 
break. Having a mortgage on most of the 
skunks in the township, the hunter was in 
haste to foreclose before winter set in. As 
we hurried afield at sunrise carrying hand-ax, 
hoc and pick, I had misgivings, for the hunter 
is as tireless as a foxhound. 
Nig was more full of business than on the 
previous evening. There were rabbits in every 
fence row. Twice the dog sallied into the 
bushes, capturing a rabbit on each occasion. 
Another rabbit sought refuge in a woodchuck’s 
hole. Nig followed, but long before he com¬ 
pleted his tour of the labyrinth, the rabbit 
popped out of another opening and whisked 
away through the weeds. Among the oaks and 
chestnuts the gray squirrels provoked Nig's 
loudest bark. The squirrels had nothing to fear 
from Nig, however, nor from us, for we carried 
no firearms. 
Once during the day we would have given 
our kingdom for a gun. We were climbing a 
hill when Nig sent up a succession of frantic 
yelps just over the ridge. 
“Rabbits?” I interrogated as we raced up the 
slopes. 
“Fox!” puffed the hunter, interpreting the 
yelps. 
Nig seemed on the point of making a notable 
capture. Fox and dog were running in a circle, 
and the fox was only a little in the lead. The 
hu-nter whistled shrilly on his fingers; I clapped 
my hands by way of encouragement. The fox 
needed no other hint. He led straight away 
toward the next ridge with increasing speed, 
his tail growing larger and larger at every 
leap. We were reminded of a comet approach¬ 
ing perihelion. Nig was hopelessly distanced 
from the start. 
Nig being occupied with other matters, gave 
the hunter but little aid. Though skunks nested 
at his feet, the dog was indifferent and made 
no sign: but when the hunter decided that a 
burrow was worth looking into, that burrow 
always harbored one skunk and sometimes 
more. Nig was of service only when the bur¬ 
row branched, then he condescended to point 
out the proper place for us to dig and watched 
anxiously on the brink of the excavation until 
the skunk was unearthed. 
We had taken four skunks, two of them from 
one nest, when late in the afternoon we located 
a burrow at the top of a ravine in the edge of 
a wild pasture. The signs were good—small 
muddy footprints on the worn root that formed 
the threshold, and dry grass and leaves recently 
carried in. spilled and scattered along the hall¬ 
way. We discarded our coats and dug down to 
the first branch, when we invoked Nig’s aid. 
Nig decided that the skunks lay in the upper 
branch very near the surface. In a few 
minutes we uncovered the nest, a bushel or 
more of grass and leaves in an enlargement of 
the tunnel. Two or three feet further on and 
quite at the end were the skunks, four of them, 
they having left the nest and retreated as we 
advanced. How they clung to the burrow! 
It required most of my strength to drag them 
out by the tail, one by one, and drop them in 
the open where the hunter stood ready. 
The hunter had long ago observed that sev¬ 
eral females and a single male constituted a 
skunk family. The rule held good with these. 
Most of the males seem to lead quite solitary 
lives at this season. We had unearthed two 
of these celibates in widely separated burrows 
earlier in the day. 
The threatened rain of the previous night 
had been only a sprinkle. The sky cleared at 
sunrise and the day had been briglit and warm 
throughout. There were dandelions in the 
brown pastures, looking timidly upward with 
half shut eyes. All that we lacked was a 
worthier motive for the day’s outing. 
On the second day Nig played us a trick. In 
a wild bank bordering a meadow were num¬ 
erous woodchuck holes; by one of these he 
paused. There were signs of skunk and we 
waited for the dog’s opinion. Nig sniffed and 
sneezed, and sniffed and sneezed again, and as 
if to remove all doubt, crawled in, and present¬ 
ly set up a sepulchral barking in the bowels of 
the earth. We coaxed him out and fell to with 
pick and hoe. Nig’s enthusiasm waned: even 
the hunter’s vigor fagged before the work was 
finished. In exploring the burrow we dug a 
canal twenty feet long and three or four feet 
deep, besides minor excavations in following 
branches, and found only an empty nest. Per¬ 
haps Nig suffered with dementia, or owing to 
the caving dirt we missed the right branch. 
However, we abandoned the place in disgust, hav¬ 
ing spent a generous part of our day on the task. 
The day declined, but the hunter was still 
hopeful. Among the hemlocks he pointed out 
a partl3'-filled .trench where he had taken seven 
skunks a twelve-ntonth ago. A few rods further 
on he paused at a well-worn burrow where 
beaten paths radiated away over the bare roots 
in all directions. With our hand-ax we 
chopped away the roots and struck the burrow 
several feet from the entrance. We calculated 
the direction and chopped another opening. 
The tunnel was roofed with roots, and there 
was more chopping than digging. Nig looked 
in and wagged his tail approvingly. We sunk 
another shaft, and another, and struck the 
nest. The hunter drew out handful after hand¬ 
ful of dry. warm leaves, until he uncovered a 
ball of black shining fur; then with a small 
stick he loosened and uncurled a white-tipped 
tail. He grasped it firmly and pulled. The 
skunk refused to budge; he was the keystone 
of the arch. We pried and pulled and finally 
dislodged him. The arch crumbled. There 
were seven again, as in the previous year. 
We spread them in a row at the foot of a 
hemlock. The hunter was absorbed in their 
value, I in their beauty, and both with good 
reason, for the usual white markings were most¬ 
ly absent. While the hunter acknowledged 
their beauty, his outlook was practical. He 
hunted skunks as naturally as the robin picks 
worms. I. being accessory to something like a 
wholesale slaughter, regarded them remorse¬ 
fully. But if the fur-bearers must be taken, this 
is certainly better than the pitiless trap. 
“If it were done w^hen ’tis done, then ’twere well 
It were done quickly.’’ 
Will W. Christman. 
