16 
FOREST AND STREAM 
January, 1918 
Bunny was safer in front of father’s 
shotgun than I was behind it. 
How were we to get into Aunt Mary’s 
feather bed without a step-ladder! 
Ike swung around on the rabbit and like 
to have knocked my head off. 
A PEPPER-GUN AMONG THE POWDER-PUFFS 
“NEWT” NEWKIRK DOES NOT CONSIDER BUNNY-HUNTING BENEATH HIS NOTICE AND 
CONTENTS HIMSELF WITH A DAY AMONG THE COTTONTAILS-BUT WHAT A DAY! 
H I-YI, cottontail! 
Ki-yi, pup! 
Miss’d ’im—give ’im t’other bar’l! 
Shucks—dawg’s holed ’im up! 
—Old Ballad of the Rabbit Hunter. 
It is my opinion that as a sporting propo¬ 
sition with dog and gun the humble rabbit 
has been sadly neglected. There are some 
sportsmen who, unless there is a chance of 
bagging a moose, deer, or bear, would con¬ 
sider bunny-hunting beneath their notice— 
altho it might be right under their noses, 
demanding little time and less expense. 
Of course I would prefer to bag an 
elephant, but since Africa is so far away 
and elephants not very plentiful after you 
get there, I can content myself now and 
then with a day among the cottontails. 
Besides when I was a kid only kneehigh 
to a duck a rabbit was the first wild thing 
I ever shot at—and missed! I’ll never for¬ 
get that experience. It happened the first 
time I ever snuk my dad’s old muzzle¬ 
loading shotgun out the back door, whis¬ 
tled softly to “Shep” and skulked across 
the garden and thru the orchard where I 
hid behind the fence to rest and get my 
breath—for that shotgun was some lug! 
The next stage of the journey was over 
the hill to a sleepy old hollow full of briers 
and brush—and rabbits. I told “Shep” to 
“Hunt ’em out!” and followed him up with 
my heart in my mouth and my finger on 
the trigger ready for any eventualitiy. 
The biggest game on four feet I have 
ever seen since didn’t begin to bring the 
thrill I got when “Shep” bounced a bunny 
right at my feet and took after it yelping 
in no uncertain tone at every jump! 
Clapping my trusty shotgun to my 
shoulder I took careful aim and pulled the 
trigger! There was an explosion resem¬ 
bling the blowing up of a munition factory 
—only louder! When I came to I was 
lying on my back looking up at the blue, 
blue sky with the shotgun sprawled across 
my chest! As I sat up I got a fleeting 
glimpse of “Shep” going over the sky-line 
toward home with his tail tucked neatly 
between his legs! The rabbit was nowhere 
in sight!—it has probably made several 
world-tours since then and is still going! 
As I got slowly to my feet and felt of 
myself I decided that my chest had been 
stove in, three ribs cracked, collar-bone 
broken and right shoulder dislocated! 
By NEWTON NEWKIRK 
Otherwise I felt all right. Investigation 
proved that the shot-charge had cut off the 
limb of a nearby birch 25 feet from the 
ground, proving that I had shot a trifle 
OVER the rabbit! It occurred to me then 
that if I could only induce a rabbit to 
get behind that shotgun instead of in front 
of it, I could kick the stuffin’ out of him! 
Father who heard the shot came out and 
accompanied me home. Then father and 
I adjourned to the woodshed for a private 
conference the result of which was that I 
didn’t sit down at all for three or four 
days—somehow or other I preferred to 
stand. All of which, however, has noth¬ 
ing to do with this rabbit-hunt I started 
out to relate: 
One Friday afternoon in late autumn 
found Ike Miller and me aboard his little 
tin “Elizabeth” chug-wagon outward bound 
from the Big Burg to the farm of Ike’s 
uncle, 40 miles away from the city’s din 
and noise, looking forward with eagerness 
to a day among the cottontails. In the 
tonneau (swell sounding word, “tonneau”) 
of the car were our guns and our own 
personal dogs—“Heck” and “Biff.” 
“Heck,” part bull and part mongrel, be¬ 
longed to Ike while I acknowledged own¬ 
ership of “Biff,” who was half-hound, 
half-grown and the other half just com¬ 
mon, ordinary dog. Neither of these “ki- 
yis” had been trained on rabbits, but Ike 
and I thought they might come handy in 
a pinch, so we took ’em along. 
U NCLE JOSHUA and Aunt Mary 
were right on deck to welcome us 
and what we did to a bountiful sup¬ 
per after that ride in the crisp air simply 
amounted to annihilation! After the meal 
cider and apples were brought on and we 
all sat before the open hearth making mer¬ 
ry until bedtime. Then came a night of 
dreamless sleep in a downy fat feather bed, 
so soft and warm and cosy that when 
Uncle Josh called us at daybreak it took 
all the moral courage Ike and I had. to 
drag ourselves from our nest. 
After a bountiful breakfast we released 
the dogs and struck out for Slate Creek 
Valley, a couple of miles over the hills. 
Uncle Joshua “calkilated” we’d find more 
rabbits there than we could shake a stick 
at. “Heck” dashed on in front barking 
joyously, but “Biff,” unused to country 
life, stuck pretty close to my heels for the 
first half-mile, then ventured ahead to join 
his canine comrade. 
Of course it is always the unexpected 
that happens in hunting. Every hunter 
knows this, but that never seems to help 
the situation much when the emergency 
arises. We were just topping the first hill 
not far from the house when a big buck- 
rabbit bounced into the air between the 
two dogs and came right back toward us! 
Ike had stopped to light his pipe while 
I stood idly beside him with my hands in 
my pockets and my shotgun sagging care¬ 
lessly under my right arm. 
{ NEARLY tore my pants off getting my 
hands out of my pockets and my gun in 
my fingers! Just as I was drawing on 
the rabbit Ike yells, “Look out!—you’ll 
shoot the dogs!”—and I lowered the gun. 
As the rabbit streaked past us, Ike with his 
eye glued on it and totally ignoring me, 
swung his double-barrel swiftly around 
and hit me a wallop alongside the head 
with such violence that I saw all the stars 
in the Great Dipper to say nothing of other 
minor constallations! I think he also bent 
the barrels of his gun—I hope he did. 
During this scrimmage the rabbit, with a 
sassy flirt of his tail, bounced out of sight. 
The two dogs stood and watched the rabbit 
beat it! 
“Wot are you tryin’ to do with that gun 
—knock my brains out?” snaps I. 
“Why didn’t you duck your brains when 
you seen me swingin’ on that rabbit?” re¬ 
torts Ike very peevish. 
“Duck!” I snarls; “if you’d kept your 
mouth shut we’d had that rabbit—I was 
holdin’ right on ’im when you holler’d not 
to shoot !” 
“Yes, you was!” says Ike; “you was 
pointin’ right at my dog! That’s a - 
(word which begins with “h” censored) of 
a rabbit dog you brought along!” 
“Zat so!” sneers I; “I don’t see that 
your dog’s got anything on my dog—your 
dog stubbed his toe on that rabbit and 
never seen it!” 
“Yeh,” says Ike, “YOUR dog seen it, 
though, didn’t he!—I saw your dog stop 
and kiss that rabbit when he passed it!” 
“Oh, indeed!” I jeers; “I’ll bet if a half- 
grown rabbit was to spit in your dog’s 
face, your dog would apologize to it!” 
