170 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 29, 1910. 
the ski runner must always have an excuse. 
Whatever the cause, the crust held, at least it 
held the skis. Right then and there was demon¬ 
strated the wonderful supporting powers of 
these snowshoes, for when the scribe scrambled 
hurriedly to his feet he discovered that while 
they had not broken through the crust he him¬ 
self had, and that there was slush beneath the 
snow. 
Yet it is a fair inference on the part of the 
scribe that where he falls there falls the rail¬ 
road man, too, so he hurriedly unslung his 
camera, which had come out of the affair intact, 
and snapped the shutter just as the railroad man 
accommodatingly commenced those desperate 
efforts to maintain his equilibrium which, in this 
case as in most with him, precede a hard fall. 
The legal gentleman maintained his dignity and 
his pole, and in turn fell to the accurate aim of 
the camera. 
Through thicket and across frozen swamp they 
picked their way, climbing this rise and slipping 
down that incline until they came to a knoll at 
the foot of which stretched a wide strip of glare 
ice. The question arose here as to whether the 
ice would hold. There was only one way to 
find out, and that was by trying it, so down the 
pitch all three glided on a chance. It held. They 
drifted across its smooth surface like three 
leaves. So far as they could tell, had that ice 
been continued indefinitely they would be slid¬ 
ing yet, for it impeded their progress not at all, 
and when they reached the further shore they 
had all the impetus the pitch had given them un¬ 
diminished. 
For all the ease with which one glides across 
ice on skis it is sometimes a difficult thing to 
keep them headed right, and if one fails to do 
this and strikes the snow again broadside, one 
may be reasonably sure of a fall. Ordinarily, 
if the ice is perfectly smooth the skis will steer 
themselves; if they do not, the only possible way 
to correct a deviation is by a sudden turn or 
twist of the body assisted by the pole. 
Up another rise, along its plateau, and down 
another pitch they went. Attempting this last 
diagonally, the scribe blundered into a bush at 
its foot and great was his fall. It is surprising 
what an effort one will make to save one’s bal¬ 
ance. Every muscle will be racked, every con¬ 
tortion one is consciously master of and a good 
many he would never suspect himself capable 
of, he goes through, only at last to measure his 
length in the snow. 
The railroad man flashed by his fallen rival, 
exulting, but such was his momentum that it 
carried him half way up the opposite slope. Des¬ 
perately he thrust home his pole to hold him¬ 
self in this precarious position, but in vain. His 
pole slipped, his skis gathered sternway and pres¬ 
ently, their heels digging in, the railroad man 
executed a difficult maneuver in mid-air and 
landed on his shoulder. 
With such laurels within his grasp the lawyer 
threw prudence to the winds, and charging down 
by his fellow ski runners,, to their and his own 
astonishment, kept his feet. Having thus effect¬ 
ually demonstrated his superiority, he set off in 
the lead, the others following humbly. 
It is not my purpose to record all the falls of 
that afternoon jaunt for two reasons: first, that 
it would take too much time and paper; and 
second, because most of them are already re¬ 
corded; as witness the different parts of the 
anatomy of each. But it is unfair to the rail¬ 
road man not to mention a spectacular perform¬ 
ance of his, not in descending, but in mounting 
a hillet. One’s tactics in skiing must conform 
first and always to conditions. In deep snow one 
may plod straight up a hill which, crusted, one 
should approach with circumspection. The rail¬ 
road man should have known this; it is safe to 
assume that he does now. Given certain condi¬ 
tions, one can always depend upon results to 
follow cause with him. As a consequence, when 
part way up a rise his skis slewed off with his 
feet. The camera was ready. 
We lingered long on this little hill. It was the 
longest in that low country. It grew tame to 
us, however, after a while, and when the lawyer 
began to negotiate it on one ski, it had quite 
lost interest to us. Something further along 
promised excitement, however. This was a blind 
drop. The rise sloped away to a fringe of 
thickets and then dropped from sight. 
Emboldened by many successful flights, tough¬ 
ened by frequent contact with the crust, the 
scribe set his slippery runners in motion. Swiftly 
they sped him down hill. To his relief the 
thicket thinned out and he picked an open space 
between two bushes. When a rod away from 
this a glance told him that a drop of some five 
feet awaited him. Even as he saw it he shot 
out and down. Like a jackknife he doubled up, 
owing to the unexpectedness of the fall, but he 
still retained his balance, and a minute later, 
when the railroad man came blundering after, 
he had the satisfaction of seeing his horrified 
look as the jump flashed into view, if he was 
made to pay for it by the recrimination of that 
individual when he had once more regained his 
feet. As for the lawyer, he had discovered that 
there was something in the wind and refused 
to be enticed to a similar fate. 
The winter afternoon was drawing to a close. 
The three turned the toes of their skis home¬ 
ward. Now they manipulated the parallel run¬ 
ners more skillfully. Up hill and down they 
plodded with uninteresting good fortune. Then 
came the temptation. Before them upreared the 
high embankment of the solitary railroad which 
cuts through these lowlands. Built far up out 
of reach of freshet water its sides stand like 
the walls of a house. In a soft snow the scribe 
has often coasted down it, but never before on 
crust. The railroad man tempted him. They 
both climbed to its summit. It looked fright¬ 
fully high and steep from this viewpoint. The 
railroad man recalled the fact that he ha,d a 
family dependent on him. The scribe had no 
such excuse. The lawyer offered his profes¬ 
sional services, which were disdainfully refused. 
Crouched low and well back, his pole held straight 
out before him, the scribe tipped his skis over 
the brink. As though he were shot from a 
catapult, he dropped down the side. It was a 
soul-thrilling moment; then he struck the level; 
his skis careened; wildly he fought for his 
equilibrium. For a brief moment he hung in 
the balance, then, wonder of wonders, he re¬ 
gained it and swept on to a successful conclus¬ 
ion of the slide. 
This was excitement enough for one day. The 
railroad man retired discomfited; the lawyer re¬ 
turned to his books. The scribe, having a free 
field and no fear of criticism from the aforesaid 
gentlemen who were unaware of his fell scheme, 
hurried back to pad and pencil and developing 
solution that the history which was made that 
day might be given to the world. 
Economic Value of Hawks and Owls. 
Washington, D. C., Jan. 22.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: In your issue of Jan. 1 , under the 
heading “Economic Value of Hawks and Owls 
in Maine,” Manly Hardy takes exception to 
statements made in a publication entitled 
“Hawks and Owls of the United States in 
Their Relation to Agriculture,” 1893 . It is evi¬ 
dent from his remarks that he prefers to con¬ 
demn the birds on the strength of his own 
limited observations in Maine, an area equal to 
about 1 per cent, of the United States as a 
whole, rather than to acquit them on the evi¬ 
dence of numerous competent observers in 
various parts of the country. The same line of 
reasoning would justify us in classifying all 
men as cannibals, since in a few localities men 
have been known to feed on human flesh. 
Your correspondent also makes the remark¬ 
able assumption that any bird, no matter what 
species, killed by a hawk or owl, if allowed to 
live, would have been of more value to the 
community than the one that devoured it. He 
implies further that the value of the treatise 
above mentioned is impaired because the greater 
part of the data upon which its conclusions rest 
came from what he calls the South and West. 
If all of the United States outside of New 
England is to be described as “South and West,” 
his point must be conceded, but if the term be 
accepted in its usual meaning, as comprising 
the country south of the Potomac and Ohio 
