34 
FOREST AND STREAM 
January, 1918 
By F. V. WILLIAMS 
Z IPP-IT-IT Ping! Both pardner and 
I ducked our heads and ran for two 
large trees, the nearest cover, but be¬ 
fore we had fairly started a bullet 
“smacked” into a tree twenty feet away. 
What pardner said would not look well 
in print, the while he “hugged” his tree 
and waited for another shot; as for me I 
was too scared to give voice to my feel¬ 
ings. Yes, sir, I was “scared,” that’s the 
word, to use, and we were not over in 
France either, just plain every day hunt¬ 
ers ’way up in the North woods and we’d 
been having a bully good time up to the 
present, but the pleasure had left our day’s 
trip with that shot. 
• “I s’pose the man that fired that shot 
was half a mile away, and say! look over 
there; see that young fir with the ‘spot’ 
on it?” I did not, but after waiting a few 
moments to see if the shot was to be fol¬ 
lowed by others we walked across to the 
tree indicated by my companion, • and sure 
enough there was a bullet hole about five 
feet from the ground. 
T HE tree was about eighteen inches 
through, and the bullet had struck 
near a limb, a bit of a glancing blow, 
tearing the bark away in such a manner 
that it left a welt of raw bark exposed and 
it was this that caught his eye. 
My companion leaned his rifle against a 
convenient windfall and taking out his 
heavy hunting knife proceeded to “dig out” 
that bullet; it had penetrated the fir some 
three inches and it was a nearly perfect 
steel jacketed bullet, not a soft nose. 
We hunted together for the remainder 
of the forenoon, separated at lunch hour 
and arrived back at camp by different 
routes in time for the evening meal with¬ 
out having fired a shot, and after we had 
gathered around the big airtight in the 
living room to talk over the events of the 
day, one of the party, a stranger to us, a 
business man who had arrived two days 
before, asked us if we would like to see 
his new rifle. She’s a “beaut” he warned, 
and of course we were interested, and what 
do you suppose that gentleman produced? 
One of the new Springfields, and showing 
us a loaded cartridge he remarked that he 
could sure “reach” for them with those 
steel jacketed bullets. 
“Why,” says he, “that’ll shoot through a 
tree a foot thick and kill a buck five hun¬ 
dred yards away.” Truly a good gun, the 
New Springfield, but the steel jacketed 
bullets for hunting deer? What do Forest 
and Stream readers think about this? 
Pard gave me the wink and we both 
agreed that his weapon was a good one, 
but suggested in a mild way that it was 
more fitted for the work against the Ger¬ 
mans than a deer hunter’s companion, at 
which our friend began to get peevish and 
the subject was dropped. 
N EXT morning the owner of the camp, 
Friend John whom we had known 
for years, was approached on the sub¬ 
ject of camping out, and we packed a 
small tent, grub, etc., into the old camp 
wagon and were driven out ten miles from 
the main camp, where we enjoyed two 
weeks of splendid sport entirely removed 
from the fear of wandering rifle bullets. 
Another time away out on Vancouver 
Island, British Columbia, a young hunter 
friend of mine told me this story on him¬ 
self. It was raining just a regular West 
Coast drizzle; he had taken his 45-70 Win¬ 
chester and went out for a “Mowich” deer, 
he had! followed a deer trail through a big 
fern patch but lost it again on the high 
ground, and as it was getting dark he had 
headed toward home. As he came to the 
edge of a small clearing he stopped to look 
about and across on the far side just ovei 
a fallen tree trunk he spied the back of a 
deer. It was quite dark and the deer in 
the shadow, so to make assurance doubly 
sure he got a good rest against the side of 
a tree and was just about to press the 
trigger—(this youngster was a good shot 
as I have seen him shoot grouse through 
the head with this same big gun, and out 
of six shots in a forenoon miss but one)— 
when something warned him that this was 
not a deer that he was about to shoot at. 
He put his rifle down to take a second 
look and make sure\ and as he did so the 
“deer” rose straight up in the air. It was 
a deer all right, but it was on the back of 
one of the neighboring ranchmen and he 
had sat down with his back against the 
windfall to rest. My young friend put his 
rifle at safety and went home. 
T HIS is old stuff? All right, perhaps it 
is. It’s new every season in the 
woods, and these incidents are true. 
Be sure of what you’re shooting at, and 
remember a small steel jacketed bullet will 
not stop your quarry like the “soft nose,” 
even if you can shoot through a steel rail 
with it. The other fellow has a right in 
the woods also and it makes him nervous 
at times to hear your armor piercing pro¬ 
jectiles go zipping past his head as you 
shoot at your game a mile away. 
