Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, $1.50. 
[ NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY I O, 1^12. i No. 127 Franklin St., New York 
Jacking for Bunnies 
1 TELL you, it’s true !” hotly reiterated motor- 
man A 1 Williams, his big, kindly face fur¬ 
rowed with lines of temporary anger. “We 
seen eleven o’ the little devils on the last run 
o’ the Limited Tuesday night, and Bert plugged 
six of ’em. If you don’t believe it, you don’t 
have to, that’s all.” 
“Aw, fergit it,” advised MacLaughlin, one of 
the linemen, as he 
picked up his hooks 
and safety belt pre¬ 
paratory to going 
home to supper. 
“Ev’rybody knows 
you’ve got the reputa¬ 
tion of bein’ the big¬ 
gest liar in the com¬ 
pany without your 
tryin’ to spring any 
story about shootin’ 
rabbits at night off 
the front end of a 
car,” and he passed 
out into the cold. 
The crowd, assem¬ 
bled in the storeroom 
of the big Consoli- 
dated Building, 
smiled. They liked 
these two—-Williams, 
with his unconquer¬ 
able fondness for ex¬ 
aggeration and abso¬ 
lute dependability in 
time of trouble or 
danger on the road, 
and MacLaughlin, al¬ 
ways afraid of being 
made the butt of some j oke. This weakness of the 
lineman’s naturally made his fellow employes all 
the more eager to “string” him, as they said, and 
great was their joy whenever the string was 
firmly attached. 
“Mac’s still shy of you, Al,” remarked the 
night trouble hunter. “He ain’t forgot the song 
and dance you gave him about that telephone 
girl over in the Newcastle Southern sendin’ him 
a bunch o’ roses tied up with pink ribbons after 
he fixed the short circuit in front of the window 
where she works. You sure had him fooled that 
time; he thought he was the whole show with 
that peroxide queen until he found out where 
the flowers really come from. That’s the story 
that got Al his championship belt,” and the 
trouble hunter proceeded to relate it at length 
for the benefit of one of the new men. 
By ROBERT S. LEMMON 
As the crowd began to thin out after the gen¬ 
eral laugh that invariably followed the repeti¬ 
tion of the famous tale, the front-end man, who 
had listened quietly to all the badinage while 
scrutinizing Williams closely, approached the 
latter as he was leaving the room. “Look here, 
Al,” he said in a low voice, “I want to go wdh 
you on the Limited run the first good chance; 
I’d like to try your method of hunting rabbits.” 
For an instant Williams’ steady eyes regarded 
the front end man gravely. “All right,” he re¬ 
plied, evidently satisfied of the other’s sincerity. 
“To-morrow night’ll be O. K., if it’s clear. The 
moon rises about 10:30 and the rabbits ought to 
be out thick by the time we hit the hills beyond 
Pine Gap. Put your gun in a suit-case and be 
at the Diamond by 11:55—we leave at midnight. 
Be sure and keep it mighty close under your hat, 
though,” he cautioned. “Anythin’ like this is 
strictly against the company rules, and if the 
old man hears of it, it’s back to the farm for us.” 
As the heavy Limited car rumbled in to the 
Diamond the following night, the front-end man 
swung aboard, nodded to the conductor, and 
after depositing his suit-case under a seat, went 
forward to the darkened platform where Wil¬ 
liams half stood, half sat on a tall stool behind 
the controller and air-brake lever. 
“It’s all right, Al,” he said, in answer to the 
other’s questioning glance. “I met the old man 
on his way home from the theater, and when 
he saw the bag he just said, ‘Cornin’ or goin’?’ 
and went on without waiting for an answer. 
Guess he doesn’t suspect anything, and I didn’t 
meet any of the other 
men.” 
The motorman 
nodded approval, and 
then, as he got the 
conductor’s go-ahead 
signal, he straighten¬ 
ed up and shoved the 
controller forward 
notch by notch until 
the big car droned 
steadily along the de¬ 
serted avenue. Soon 
the conductor came 
forward and grinned 
understandingly as he 
caught the front-end 
man’s eye. 
“How many pas¬ 
sengers ’ve you got, 
Bert?” queried Wil¬ 
liams. 
“Only two, and 
they both get off at 
Stop 19. We’ll prob’ly 
have an empty car 
from there on, so 
you fellows ’ll have 
a chance to do some 
shootin’. Ain’t it one 
peach of a moon, though? Betcher we get 
some.” He rubbed his hands together in an¬ 
ticipation and returned to the bright interior of 
the car, closing the curtained doors behind him. 
The houses were becoming more scattered now 
and longer intervals separated the sputtering arc 
lights above the streets. Soon dark blurrs of 
woodland and occasional pasture lots appeared, 
dimly formless in the moonlight. An old corn¬ 
field, where the shocks straggled in irregular 
rows like ghostly tents, flashed past—the opert 
country was at hand. 
“You see, it’s this way,” explained Williams, 
settling back comfortably on his stool as the 
car swung around a curve and began to climb 
a long, easy grade. “You know that long stretch 
of woods the other side of Pine Gap^—wild-like 
and rough, with quite a few big swamps and 
BEAVER HOUSE AND POND IN GUNNISON COUNTY, COLORADO. 
From a photograph by H. L. Curtis. 
