260 
FOREST AND STREAM 
JUNE, 1917 
pesky nuisance, I should first of all invest 
in a silencer for my .22. If I could not 
obtain a silencer, I should still not be 
discouraged. Have you ever used the little 
smokeless B. B. caps? Hardly make a 
sound, do they? And what noise they do 
make, don’t sound much like the crack of 
a rifle. It’s more like the snap of the 
kids’ air gun. Now if I had a lot of bread 
crumbs out in the back yard, close up 
against the fence, and if I were sitting 
just inside the shed door, or in the kitchen 
with the window raised just a trifle, and I 
should take that little .22 with one of 
those smokeless B. B. caps in it and should 
—of course, if it is against the law you had 
better not do it. But if it wasn’t, a fellow 
could have quite a lot of fun and good 
experience just in that way, couldn’t he? 
Did you ever go out for a walk the day 
after a light fall of snow? It grew warm¬ 
er during the night and the sun is shining 
brightly this morning. The eaves are drip¬ 
ping and the snow packs down under your 
tread. Great tracking snow—if only there 
were something to track. It’s hard luck 
living in the city on a day like this. It 
sure would be one grand day to be out in 
the country. What a day for a rabbit hunt 
or a fox chase. The darned old cat must 
have stayed out last night, the way things 
are tracked up in the back yard—and look 
where she tried to drag the cover off the 
garbage can. Come to think of it, the old 
cat was in the house last night because I 
let her out this morning. Hum. Don’t 
know that I ever saw a cat walk with steps 
so close together as these are. Tracks go 
right under the barn too, and don’t come 
out. There is some of her fur sticking 
to one of the boards where she squeezed 
under- 
Well, I’ll be blowed— Skunk ?—and right 
here in the city? Can you beat it? And 
I would have taken my oath that there was 
not a wild thing within fifty miles of here. 
That’s another discovery, isn’t it? 
T HIS is an ideal day to make further 
explorations—to “go abroad at home.” 
Let us take a walk up around the 
limits of the trolley line, where the new 
streets are being opened and where the 
landscape is dotted with the signs of vari¬ 
ous real estate companies and their offers 
of free lots to builders. Over here is quite 
HOME-MADE TARGET PISTOLS 
FASHIONED FROM .22 RIFLES 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The pictures show two target pistols, 
made from 22-calibre single-shot bolt-action 
Winchester rifles, model of 1902. One of 
them was made by M. J. Hartman, and the 
other by R. H. Coats, both of Wilkes-Barre, 
Pa. Both pistols have 10-inch barrels, and 
in addition to the open sights (which are 
S l / 2 inches apart), have folding peep sights, 
which give a distance of 14 inches between 
sights. Both are very accurate. 
We put in several pleasant hours in mak¬ 
ing them, and greatly enjoy shooting them 
when on trips to the country. These little 
rifles are very inexpensive, and anyone 
who enjoys such work can easily, with a 
few tools, make one of them over into a 
pistol, and he will have a cheap, but ac¬ 
curate gun. 
In making them, the barrels were sawed 
off to 10 inches, with a hack saw, and 
trued up nicely on the end. For the one 
shown above, an entirely new stock was 
made from a piece of black walnut. The 
groove for the barrel and trigger mechan¬ 
ism was made with a narrow chisel, gouge, 
round file, etc., with the original rifle stock 
for a pattern. After this was done, the 
stock was worked 
down with a wood 'j, 
rasp and sand paper, 
until the grip was 
about right. For the 
one shown below we used the original rifle 
stock, sawed it off three inches back of 
the trigger, and with a fine saw made 
a very accurate tenon ^ inch thick. 
Then we sawed off a section about 4 
inches long, from the small end of the 
discarded piece of stock, dressed it down 
nearly small enough for the grip, and 
made an accurate mortise, so that when 
finished down carefully, it would make a 
driving fit. Then we put in plenty of 
liquid glue, drove it together, and put a 
brass screw through the center. After 
this had thoroughly set, the grip was fin¬ 
ished with rasp and sand-paper. 
Both pistols have copper butt plates, 
ground and filed to fit nicely, finished with 
emery cloth, and put on with long screws, 
with the heads countersunk. Slots had to 
be filed for the front sights. This can be 
done with a fine three-cornered file. 
On the upper pistol, the original open 
sights were used. On the lower one, a 
gold bead sight which had been removed 
from a rifle (when putting on a new set of 
sights), was used for the front sight. This 
being higher than the original, neces¬ 
sitated the making of a new rear open sight, 
which was filed out of a soft piece of 
steel, and blued by heating to a white heat 
and then plunging into cold water. 
The folding peep sights are home-made 
affairs, but answer the purpose very nicely. 
The stocks were 
finished by rubbing 
in several coats of linseed 
oil. R. H. Coats. 
Wilkes-Barre, Pa. 
a little stretch of open country with many 
little clumps of wild berry bushes, and oc¬ 
casional patches of elders down in the 
swampier lowland. There is an infrequent 
house, but still things seem more like the 
country than any other spot near at hand. 
Let us walk through the thickets rather 
than sticking to the beaten path of the em¬ 
bryo sidewalk. 
Notice those tracks? Molly Cottontail 
still holds squatter’s rights here, even 
though she be trespassing on city pre¬ 
serves. There are some more tracks. 
Quite a settlement of bunnies we have 
stumbled upon—and yet you were certain 
there was not a rabbit this side of East 
Mountain. 
(the end) • 
WHEN THE HUNTED 
FOILS THE HUNTER 
By GEORGE L. KIRK 
111. A Bear That Got Away 
A PARTY of deer hunters on Mount 
Pico, Vermont, had seen bear 
tracks repeatedly during their week s 
stay in camp, and some of the hunters had 
given bruin more attention than the bucks. 
But not so much as a glimpse of one of 
the black animals had they caught. To 
make conditions the more tantalizing, the 
bear traveled within ten rods of the shack 
which served as camp during the last night 
of the hunt, as was shown by his tracks 
in the snow next morning. It was resolved 
to set a trap for bruin and so, a week later, 
two hunters again visited the camp site 
and set a powerful Newhouse, Number 5, 
a quarter of a mile from the shack—where 
telltale marks in the snow indicated that 
the varmint was feeding on the carcass of 
a doe. 
The hunters were kept busy with their 
daily rolitine, but a moonlight night tempt¬ 
ed them to visit the trap. Nearing the spot 
where the doe’s carcass lay, they heard the 
cracking of twigs and their hearts pumped 
hard as they covered the few remaining 
rods of steep mountain slope which 
brought them within view of the spot 
where the trap had been concealed. The 
full moon shining on the blanket of snow 
lighted the forest well, and soon the form 
of a large black bear was plainly visible, 
standing over the trap. 
“Ha! We’ve got him,” remarked one of 
the trappers. “Don’t shoot, let’s look at 
him alive,” said the other. And they started 
pell-mell for bruin. But they were two 
sure of their game. At the sound of their 
voices, the animal whisked about and was 
gone; they had disturbed him at his sup¬ 
per. 
Examination of the place showed that 
the bear had not been in the trap; he had 
carefully stepped over it and the venison 
he was chewing tasted so good that he lost 
his usual caution. Thus was missed an 
opportunity for a fairly good shot. 
Will Mr. W. E. Keith, a recent corre¬ 
spondent, kindly send his address to the 
Editorial Desk, office of Forest and Stream, 
118 East 28th street, New York City? It 
will be appreciated. 
