TOURING WITH RAYMOND SPEARS 
SELECTING AN OUTFIT THAT WILL ADD TO THE INTEREST 
OF YOUR TRIP WITHOUT UNDULY INCREASING THE BURDEN 
By RAYMOND S SPEARS 
JUST to roll along, day after day, 
J across great open spaces, through 
penned-in gardens and farm lands, go¬ 
ing over mountain ranges on crooked 
trails, following long valleys, threading- 
villages and cities along one’s highway 
of experience is the sport of touring. 
All the details of automobile travel are 
part of the sport, the mishaps, the differ¬ 
ent kinds of roads, the meals, the night 
camps or lodgings for the night, all com¬ 
bine in the fascinating game that is in 
this Gypsy wandering. 
Whatever adds to the interest of the 
trip without increasing the burden too 
much is to be considered as a part of 
the sporting equipment. If anything is 
a nuisance and it can be dispensed with, 
chuck it or ship it back. There are 
trifles in weight which accumulate in 
number till somebody’s seat is crowded, 
or somebody must be bothered with the 
care—is it worth while ? 
“You begin to ship when you hit 
those alkali chucks,” the tourist remarks 
of one region, and of another: “When 
vou see those fish you wish you had your 
lines and hooks.” 
Elsewhere, perhaps too strongly. I 
have remarked on the slaughter of 
game and the devestation of the fishing 
beside the highways tourists follow. 
The tourist may or may not be a hunter, 
fisherman or photographer. But the au¬ 
tomobile on a long tour may with pro¬ 
priety carry a camera, a fish rod or two 
There is no man better qualified to 
advise the prospective auto tourists than 
Mr. Spears. He has rambled and ex¬ 
plored this country from end to end a 
dozen times or more, sometimes on 
foot, again on the bicycle and for the 
past dozen years by automobile. Mr. 
Spears knows whereof he writes and 
he writes entertainingly. 
and firearms. But the moment a man 
begins to pick equipment for the other 
fellow he runs into all the difficulties 
there are, for why should 'a rifle hunter, 
for instance, hope to tell a shotgun man 
what he will best do ? Or a fly fisherman 
tell the bobber-baiters their chances? 
But perhaps, as a cautious reporter of 
conditions, I can help with suggestions. 
Probably most hunters and fishermen 
would call me a mere traveler, because 
on my way I merely sample the local 
sports, perhaps merely as a spectator, or 
shooting once in a while, when the others 
are slam-banging away over the marshes 
or cornfields, or in the timber. 1 dislike 
going into any country and grabbing 
sport until I have first made sure that I 
am not interfering with somebody else’s 
own fun. 
Consider, for example, the conditions 
right now in every state in the country. 
The automobile tourists, plowing along 
eighty or a hundred miles in a day, may 
see five or six covies of quail, flush a 
prairie chicken or two, jump a jackrab- 
bit, see a letter of geese in the sky, and 
even in some countries, see the white 
flower of an antelope, or the silhouette 
of an elk or moose against the sky at 
sunset. In Texas, where thousands of 
ranchers are posting their lands, it is not 
selfishness, not inhospitality, not dislike 
of hunters or tourists, but a sheer long¬ 
ing to restore the prairie chicken, the 
wild turkey and other game to the con¬ 
dition they were in before the millions 
of birds and animals were slaughtered 
to feed cheap meat to restaurants and 
those who bought game. 
“I tell you, that looks good!” I heard 
an old market hunter exclaim, as he saw 
a prairie chicken rise up above the prairie 
pasture and take wild flight to safety. 
He had not seen one in years. 
The game the tourist sees beside the 
highway may r be the one flock or covey 
or head within miles of that place. To 
shoot it would be a contemptible thing. 
It might kill the hope of game restora¬ 
tion in a valley. 
In other regions some game is permis 
sible. Thus we who conserve rabbit? 
and rejoice when the protectors catch 
an illegal hunter at his work, will find 
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