412 
FOREST AND STREAM 
SEPTEMBER, 1917 
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SAFETY FIRST 
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I T was raining. Outside it was anything 
but a day for partridge. One of the two 
hunters had been out in the forenoon and 
got nothing, as the rain had come up and 
the birds were all under cover. Just now 
the one was busily engaged at greasing a 
pair of boots, the other was reading. A 
young lady—one of the party—came in 
carrying her twenty-gauge repeater. It 
needed cleaning, she said, and one of the 
men offered to clean it for her. Would he 
be so kind ? 
He would. So he lay down his book 
and took the gun. The young lady was in 
a hurry to get a few articles—some things 
packed—they were leaving in a few days 
and she was packing by degrees so as not 
to have it all to do the last day—and she 
excused herself and returned to the cabin 
the ladies occupied, some fifty feet away. 
Snick — cl-lick the action of the little re¬ 
peater was opened and closed—it was a 
hammer gun—and the fellow greasing the 
boots glanced up and saw the other about 
to lower the hammer. 
“No shell in the gun, is there?” he 
queried. 
Bang! came the answer. And the fellow 
with the gun looked up with a white face 
and the old time-worn excuse: 
“I didn’t know it was loaded.” 
Well, there was a hole torn out through 
the baseboard of the neat little log cabin 
over an inch across. A man with a bit of 
imagination (just a little bit, mind you) 
By F. V. WILLIAMS 
after seeing the way it all happened would 
feel tiny shivers up his spine as he thought 
of how a human being, or even a pet dog 
might look, if injured by the same method 
at that range. 
“That would never have happened if it 
had been my hammerless; these hammer 
guns are always dangerous,” he went on to 
explain. And then this “hunter” went and 
lay down for an hour, to recover his nerve. 
WO days afterward these same fel¬ 
lows were in a punt after ducks. The 
man in the stern had laid his ham¬ 
merless repeater down with the stock and 
muzzle resting on the thwarts of the boat. 
The fellow at the oars happened to glance 
at the gun. It was one of the make that 
shows a red plug when the gun is cocked— 
as one fellow remarks, “When the old gun 
is dangerous she shows RED.” 
The fellow at the oars saw the red plug. 
The muzzle of the gun was pointed toward 
the bow of the boat as it lay, but there 
was enough elevation from the manner in 
which the barrel hung upside down across 
the thwarts to come mighty close to point¬ 
ing at the oarsman’s elbow. 
“Is that gun loaded?” asked the fellow 
rowing. 
“Why sure it is,” replied the other. 
What of it? Don’t you carry yours 
loaded in the boat?” 
No, sir, I do not; not when there are 
two in a punt the size of this. And I’d like 
to ask you to put the safety on that gun 
of yours.” 
The other did as he was requested, but 
grumbled a retort: “You’re the most ner¬ 
vous person I ever saw when there’s a gun 
about.” 
“I sure am, when the gun is handled like 
that.” 
Well, this little incident, and the other 
that happened in the cabin, put an end to 
these two fellows hunting together. They 
took opposite directions for the remainder 
of the trip. True, both came out of the 
woods without any more serious damage 
than injured feelings. But there’s always 
that chance. 
T HEN there was the fellow on his first 
trip with a new hammerless. He and 
a companion went after ducks. His 
companion paddled and he sat up in front 
to shoot. A couple of mallards jumped 
1 1om a half-hidden pool in a bunch of 
reeds.. The shooter half rose to his feet 1 — 
and both barrels of his double gun went 
off. Pulled off, of course. He did not 
know the safety was off. Said so himself 
afterw r ards, and added that he was ashamed 
to admit he could be so careless. 
The man with the paddle kept his seat, 
also his head, and by clever maneuvering 
prevented the canoe from upsetting as 
shooter and gun went overboard. Luckily 
the water was not deep. But the mud be¬ 
neath was about the same depth as the 
water—something over two feet—and it 
took their combined efforts for over an 
hopr to locate and fish up the gun, to say 
nothing of a good day’s shooting spoiled. 
There’s nothing like a good hunting trip 
for real downright sport. At least it’s our 
favorite sport; not alone for what you 
kill, but for the fact that you have to be 
out in time to see the sun rise, or perhaps 
to see a gray day break with flurries of 
snow—even a dull wet day with the rain 
pelting down, while it’s breaking, is a sight 
that’ll get to almost any outdoorsman. 
The writer once saw a fellow kill a 
trapped raccoon with the butt of a loaded 
shotgun. ^ I did not know at the time that 
it was loaded, and I was too far away to 
prevent what he did. The chances that 
some people take! And they get away 
with them, sometimes. 
Forest and Stream for October will con¬ 
tain some words of caution for the man 
with the high-power rifle. 
