8 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. s, 1907. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
The New York Sun’s recent half-page 
article on “Killing Elk for Their Teeth” was 
a commendable one, and no doubt it 
helped to attract attention to this reprehen¬ 
sible practice; but it was unfortunate that 
the following paragraph appeared in the 
otherwise praiseworthy article: 
There is a story that sometimes these poachers do not 
kill the elk. They rope the animals, hogtie them, as 
cowboys tie cattle, and pull their teeth. Then the elk 
are turned loose to starve. This is far more cruel than 
killing them outright. 
This probably could be done, but not many 
men of the elk-killing class would care for 
work so strenuous. The idea that an elk, de¬ 
prived of the two coveted teeth, would starve 
is, however, not true. The canines of the elk 
are just as useful in -masticating its food as 
the canines of a horse are for the same pur¬ 
pose; in other words, they are of no use for 
that purpose. 
* 
'In Wisconsin a deer-hunting-license holder 
gets two tags with his license, entitling him 
to shoot two deer. A -correspondent sends 
me the following from a Duluth paper, show¬ 
ing how anxious a Milwaukee hunter was to 
use up his tags, and the result: 
George L. Odenbrett, of Milwaukee, used 
two tags of his hunting license, but when he 
returned to Milwaukee with his hunting out¬ 
fit he only took one deer. The other tag went 
with a deer that escaped with the tag. Oden¬ 
brett, with his brother was crossing the coun¬ 
try northwest of here, to a camp, nine miles 
through the woods. On the trip the brothers 
came to a swamp, and saw the track of a big 
animal. William Odenbrett circled around 
the swamp, while George waited for the game 
to appear. The result was that George had 
a standing shot at a big buck. It was his first 
deer, so he dropped his rifle when he saw the 
animal fall, and rushed forward to finish the 
task. Taking out his license he tore off a 
tag and tied it to the buck’s horn, then took 
out his knife to cut the buck’s throat. Be¬ 
fore he could open the knife, however, the 
buck was up and away. His shot had struck 
one of the buck’s horns and stunned the ani¬ 
mal.” 
If the brother did not imagine that a new 
smelter had opened up in that neck o’ woods, 
I miss my guess. 
* 
“Will the Civilized Man Hunt -and Fish for 
Sport?” was the subject on which a Brooklyn 
minister delivered a sermon on a recent Sunday. 
Will he! What a question for an apparently 
enlightened minister to propound. But then, on 
second thought, it all depends on this particu¬ 
lar sky pilot’s definition of the term “civilized 
man.” Some day when his head is unusually 
woolly from worrying over questions of this 
sort, let him go out of town a few miles, open 
his eyes and see for himself whether civilized 
men do hunt and fish for sport. It may be our 
friend is one of those who believe that all the 
sportsman cares for, in his journeys afield, is to 
fill the game bag or creel. In that case- the min¬ 
ister should be introduced to a lively trout 
through the medium of a four-ounce rod. 
What? 
* 
In one of his letters Horace Kephart refers 
to a Mr. Clemens (the Hon. Jere Clemens) 
and a book he wrote, entitled “Bernard File,” 
in which the hero drives five bullets in succes¬ 
sion front a pocket revolver into a spot of wet 
powder half the size of a man’s hand, at forty 
paces, without lowering his arm. Mr. Kephart 
adds: 
I showed this passage to one of our crack 
shots, and he remarked: ‘Well, if Lile had the 
nerve of the man who wrote that book, he could 
have made the score standing on his head.’ Of 
course, Mr. Clemens used a novelist’s license; 
but it is a pity he was not content with the 
simple truth about the marksmanship of his 
time—it needed no embellishment. ' 
Eaily in the forties there was a character in 
St. Louis named Gabriel Paul, who disputed 
with Travis the pistol championship of the West. 
When Paul was feeling particularly jolly, he 
used to shoot off the boot-heels of passersby, 
or shoot cigars out of men’s mouths with his 
pistol. This was before cowboys were heard 
of. W r e have men to-day who could do as 
much—but they don’t.” 
tt 
The Rev. Geo. \ . McAllister, pastor M. E. 
Church, of Lockwood, N. Y., writes me to say: 
Just tell that fellow who hung up his gun 
when he shot the rabbit and grouse at one 
shot and is waiting for ‘some one to beat it.’ 
that I will ‘go him one better.’ Here is a story 
that came to me from a fellow sportsman that is 
perfectly reliable: While returning from a hunt 
with an unsatisfactory bag—in the days when 
it took more to please a sportsman than at 
present—he saw three pigeons. One was flying 
. east, one west, and the third coming directly 
•toward him. He threw his gun to place, shot 
at the incomer and killed all three.” 
■I 
I have often wondered what passes through 
the minds of small creatures when they find 
themselves in strange places. This occurred 
to me very forcibly one day when I stood for 
half an hour watching the antics of a gray 
squirrel that had tried to cross a road on a 
two inch cable, and whose progress was not 
only blocked by. the huge traveling steel 
bucket used to carry earth from an excavation 
to wagons, but whose life was threatened re¬ 
peatedly when it got in the bucket’s way. It 
was compelled to run at top speed every time 
the bucket came toward it, but the moment 
the latter began to ascend the cable the 
squirrel, as cocky as ever, scrambled along behind. 
W. L. Allison, of Waynesburg, Pa., sends 
me an occurrence somewhat similar, involving 
a rabbit. He says that the letter he incloses 
needs no explanation save that the country 
referred to is an oil and gas region, gridironed 
with oil and gas pipe lines, and the six-inch 
pipe mentioned was used for casing wells. 
Those pipes are frequently used in several 
wells, being hauled from one well to another, 
as described by Mr. N. P. Rogers of Jeffer¬ 
son, Pa., who writes: 
“Two teamsters, Wm. Taylor and Chris¬ 
topher Simmons (both now residents of 
Clarksville, Pa.) were hauling 6 inch pipe 
from the Jake Crayne farm to a point be¬ 
yond Clarksville, stopped at my place to feed 
their horses and get dinner. 
‘Dan Clendaniels, who worked for me at 
that time, discovered a rabbit in a joint of 
that 6 inch casing. A few questions elicited 
the fact that the teamsters did not know it 
was there. They informed us (Dan and I) 
that they had rolled the casing from a skid- 
way higher than their wagons, on to their 
wagons, ‘and it just went on hellity-lick,’ as 
Taylor expressed it. The distance from this 
point to Crayne’s well is fully four miles. 
After some difficulty we forced the rabbit 
out of his iron hole—for we failed to scare 
him out by throwing in gravel, and a short 
chase with my farm dog, soon put bunnie 
out of business. The little fellow did not 
seem to be in the least hurt from his jolting 
up-hill-and-down-dale, and skipped out as 
lively as anybody’s rabbit, and might have 
made good, except for his being a stranger 
in a strange land. 
Foxes are justly credited with consider¬ 
able cunning, but Br’er Rabbit—timid little 
chap that he is—usually depends upon his 
heels for safety, and whatever possessed that 
fool-fellow to ride so far I do not know, unless 
impelled by sheer fright.” 
* 
It is curious how general is the belief that 
automatic firearms, so-called, will fire repeatedly 
if one merely presses the trigger. No one, it 
seems, stops to think what the result might be 
if this were true. No one apparently considers 
how awkward it would be if an automatic rifle 
should keep on firing after one is ready to stop. 
Fancy the hunter using one on deer, the first 
shot being effective. Do persons holding this 
belief imagine that he must, therefore, hold the 
rifle muzzle down and let the next several shots 
lodge in the ground?. 
Common sense should teach any person that 
no such thing would be permissible among 
civilized people. 
All automatic firearms for sporting and mili¬ 
tary use are automatic only in the sense that 
the gas generated in the chamber by the firing 
of the first shot is utilized to extract the spent 
shell, push a fresh cartridge into the chamber, 
raise the striker and close the locking bolts. 
One pressure of the finger discharges the piece 
and loads it again; and that is all. The piece 
must be made ready for the first shot in very 
much the same manner as with the oldest single¬ 
shot rifles. In some of them it is not only 
necessary to press the trigger with considerable 
force for each shot, but to release it instantly 
and completely. If the trigger be held back the 
parts will not function, and the cocking must 
be done with the hand-lever, just as the piece 
must be made ready for the first shor. In 
short, the so-called automatic arms of to-day are 
automatic ejectors and loaders; that is all. 
Grizzly King. 
