FOREST AND STREAM 
[April j8, 1908. 
6lO 
buck through the glasses, that brought him “so 
near, but still so far.” 
We staid up there five days, but during that 
time had only about two and a half of hunting; 
the last day the fog was so thick that “you could 
drive a nail into it and hang your coat on it,” 
as F„ said. 
During the close season of five years the 
reindeer have increased a good deal, but the 
trouble is they get so tame that when the season 
opens they are easily slaughtered. And another 
thing, old hunters claim the increase is not what 
it ought to be, on account of the old bucks dur¬ 
ing the rutting season collecting all the does 
they come across and keeping them together in 
a bunch; but as there is always a lot of young 
bucks hanging around watching for a chance to 
steal a beauty from the old fellow’s harem, he 
is always worrying and on the move and can, 
as a rule, not attend to all his wives. The result 
is, a lot of barren does. This again is where 
the close season of several years again does 
harm, as it is of course the hunter’s aim to get 
the big bucks, and with them away, the young 
ones have a chance. “Cut the seasort down, 
and limit the bag to one deer, if necessary”— 
the limit is now three—they say, “but don’t 
stop the shooting altogether.” 
My First Partridge. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The keen sense of satisfaction, sometimes not 
unmixed with regret, which comes over one 
after having made a difficult kill of a ruffed 
grouse on the wing, is something every sports¬ 
man has experienced, and always will experience 
as long as it is his privilege to hunt for this 
most elusive bird. 
How many brother sportsmen remember the 
first ruffed grouse it was their good fortune to 
kill on the wing; how proud they were of that 
achievement, and how often have they recounted 
that circumstance, with all the details of that 
momentous event in their lives as sportsmen. 
I was scarcely more than sixteen years of age 
when my father, an ardent sportsman and ex¬ 
cellent shot, placed in my hands my first gun. 
How well I remember it. It was a double bar¬ 
rel, breech-loading, 12-bore James, and it would 
certainly shoot where you held it. At first I was 
not allowed any shells to shoot, but must first 
master the art of handling the gun. Never 
under any circumstances was I to point the gun, 
even if I knew positively that it was unloaded, 
at any person under pain of having it taken 
away from me. After some schooling I became 
fairly proficient in this branch of my education, 
and then the. real lesson on how to kill a par¬ 
tridge on the wing was commenced. This was 
a much more difficult lesson to learn than that 
of handling the gun, and many were the charges 
of powder and shot that I fired into the air at 
a rapidly disappearing partridge before I turned 
the trick and downed my first one. 
In those days my father was wont to set aside 
two weeks of each October for a shooting trip 
in Connecticut, where he was born and reared. 
What a happy youngster I was when he in¬ 
formed me one day that I was to accompany him 
on one of those trips, and for many years there¬ 
after I was his companion on those delightful 
annual excursions. 
On the occasion of which I write we arrived 
at the old home in due time, having with us Dan, 
our pointer, a sturdy old fellow, and as fine a 
partridge dog as I ever shot over. The birds 
were very plentiful, and day after day we 
brought in good bags; that is, my father shot 
them and I was allowed to carry some of them, 
just to make me feel good, for it was some 
solace to me to be able to feel my hunting coat 
drag a little at the shoulders. I was an execrable 
shot, and try as I would and shoot as much as 
I could, to hit a partridge on the wing seemed 
for me impossible. The startling whirr as they 
flushed from unexpected places, and the velocity 
with which they flew made me nervous, and I 
invariably fired both barrels into the air with 
no thought of the relative position of gun and 
bird. My father was constantly schooling me, 
telling me that I shot too quickly, and just to 
show me how it was done would call me over 
to him when old Dan had a point and explain 
to me how easy it was as he neatly bagged the 
bird Dan was pointing. I began to get discour¬ 
aged and disgusted with myself, and decided that 
A WYOMING “TOWN.” 
I would never make a hunter. Father was anx¬ 
ious that I should persevere, and encouraged 
me in every way, for he knew well that after 
I had fairly killed my first I would become as en¬ 
thusiastic a devotee of the sport as all those 
good fellows who have done the same. 
Finally, one bright crisp October day, we left 
the house early, and after a brisk walk entered 
a stretch of good c^rer in a small valley through 
which ran a tiny stream; chestnuts, thorn apples 
and wild grapes were plenty along its course. 
It was an ideal spot for partridge. We had 
flushed a number of birds, and my father had 
brought several to bag, but as usual my bag was 
empty. I was again quite discouraged, for I had 
had three or four good shots and had missed 
them—clean. 
I was talking 1o my father and trying to ex¬ 
plain to him that it was worse than useless to 
try to make a sportsman out of me, when sud¬ 
denly from under an old dead treetop a large 
cock bird flushed wild, and started like an ex¬ 
press train for the other end of the county. My 
father took his direction and remarked, “That 
bird has gone up into that little neck of woods 
that runs out into the lot where those big chest¬ 
nut trees are.” He always seemed to know the 
destination of every partridge. A cleared field 
surrounded the “neck” in question, and thither 
we wended our way, and as we arrived at the 
lower part of it I was told to get out into the 
lot near the fence, which I did. We worked 
along a little way, Dan commenced to make 
game, and presently was trailing in his l est manner. 
My father kept talking encouragingly to me 
in a low tone. “Now keep your eyes open. Keep 
a little ahead of Dan. He is stiff on his point. 
Now stand where you are, and when the bird 
comes out put on to him and down him.” 
I was on the alert, gun ready and listening in¬ 
tently for the first whirr of wings. “If you are 
ready I'll send him out to you. There he goes.” 
Whir-r-r-r-r. Out into the open lot with a 
roar came the partridge, up went my gun, and 
sighting along the barrel until I had lined him 
up—bang—he crumpled up in mid air, turned- 
over once or twice and struck the ground with 
a thud. 
“I’ve got him. I’ve got him,” I shouted, and 
not stopping to reload I rushed out into the field 
and proudly picked up my first partridge, a large 
old silver-tail cock. 
My father, closely followed by Dan, came out 
into the lot, and the smile of satisfaction which 
came over his face at the sight of me standing, 
there with that big cock bird in my hands wa- 
sufficient reward for all the discouragement 1 
had suffered in trying to master the art of kill 
ing a partridge on the wing. I never knew who 
was the more elated over that first kill—mj 
father or I. 
Those happy days have long since passed, anc 
those hunting trips to the old home country art 
no more. Father has passed to his reward, bu 
he left to me a heritage rich in retrospection 
and hallowed by the memories of many joy 
ful days afield with him, with dog and gun 
memories which at times make the eyes grov 
moist and dim, as out of the fleeting shadow 
of the past you summon to 3 r our mind the hal 
forgotten thoughts of some pleasant huntin; 
trip, and live again in that other self, the day 
now past and gone. F. J. D. 
An Inoffensive Town. 
Baltimore, Md., March 31 .—Editor Forest an< 
Stream: On the map of Wyoming, within th 
boundaries of the county of Uinta and in th 
basin rimmed by the mountain ranges known r 
the Gros Ventre, Snake River and- Salt River, 
an isolated signification of a town. A larg 
circle may be drawn around it without inclue 
ing another. The denoting dot is of the si? 
usually accorded to towns, regardless of tl 
number of inhabitants, and the accompanyin 
name is Bondurant. 
Now, as is well known, a hunter of big-gan 
has a strong antipathy for towns. He seeks tl 
wilderness and his pleasure scarcely begins lint 
he has gotten as far away as possible from ai 
and all indication of people and their domicile 
Therefore, the thought of passing within vie 
of a settlement en route from the wild ar 
rugged Hoback Canon, where elk abound, to tl 
broad stretches of the Red Desert, wherec 
antelope graze, seemed a profanation and a gla 
ing and disturbing inconsistency. When, hoi 
ever, our pack train reached the designated sp 
our sensibilities were not jarred and this fa 
may be explained by this photograph, whii 
shows the entire town and includes one-half - 
its population. Lippincott. 
