Oct. 8, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
595 
The “Old Reliable” PARKER GUN 
Wins for the EIGHTH Time 
The Grand American Handicap. 
Score of 100 Straight from 19 Yards. 
At Chicago, Ill., June 23, 1910. 
Mr. Riley Thompson, of Cainsville, Mo., made this record, which has 
never before been equaled in this classic event. 
The Parker Gun, in the hands of Mr. Guy V. Dering, also won 
the Amateur Championship at Chicago, June 24, scoring 189 ex 200, 
shooting at 160 singles and 20 doubles. 
The Prize Winners and Champions shoot The PARKER GUN! 
Why don’t YOU? 
PARKER. BROS. 
New York Salesrooms : 32 Warren Si. Meriden, Conn. 
fair is probably not due to the geographical 
position of Irbit, but seems rather to be one of 
the consequences of the evolution which Russian 
trade is undergoing, due to its- growing net of 
railway lines, which decentralize its trade, the 
large Russian and foreign fur dealers are grad¬ 
ually changing their purchases to the places of 
production, and the Leipzig furriers at their last 
meeting came to the conclusion that it was more 
profitable to purchase their requirements in Si¬ 
berian furs through agents in the fur-producing 
districts, and that this should be done at as 
early a moment as possible. 
The dealers in manufactured goods have al¬ 
ready transferred a considerable share of their 
operations to Omsk and are there catering for 
the principal purchasing regions, the Steppes and 
Western Siberia. This tendency toward decen¬ 
tralization cannot be restrained by one or two 
places, and therefore it seems unlikely that the 
idea of transferring the fair will be realized. 
The sales in furs were brisk, aggregating $4,- 
301,795, being $1,142,270 more than in 1909. The 
increase was chiefly in squirrel furs, of which 
6,225,000 skins and tails were sold for $2,121,- 
2S5, against 4,180,000 skins and $t. 125,292 in 1907. 
Hare skins, marmot and fox skins also showed 
an increase. 
A large decrease is noted in sable skins, the 
sales amounting' to only $267,594, against $662,- 
122 in 1909. the quantities brought to the fair 
being about 10,000 and 20,000 respectively. 
In purchasing furs according to names, such 
as ermine, sable, fox, etc., without investigating 
their origin, the buyer is likely to suffer, for the 
prices range according to the localities wherein 
the animals were captured. 
A GHOSTLY VISITOR. 
Over the turf silently there came toward me 
a dim figure which, as it approached, resolved 
itself into the likeness of a lively old man c.othed 
in black, with an apron and gaiters upon his 
shapely legs and a low-crowned, broad hat upon 
his head. 11 is round cheeks were apples; his 
nose was colored by nothing but the soundest 
port, yet his eyes were bright and youthful—a 
rotund, comfortable elder. Lace ruffles were at 
his wrists and a pair of bands depended below 
his two ample chins. I assumed him to be some 
dignitary of the cathedral with an old-fashioned 
taste in dress. A huge creel was slung over his 
plump shoulders, and in his hand he bore a tre¬ 
mendous fishing rod. These things placed him 
among the fraternity. 
He said: "Master, well met!” and I under¬ 
stood him to be a facetious old gentleman. 
Humor was out of harmony with my mood, but 
I strove to be civil. "Grammercy!" said I, 
“vastly well met!” He did not smile, and I 
put him down as one of those humorists whom 
their own wit alone entertains, and went on fish¬ 
ing. Minutes were precious. 1 was aware that 
he remained beside me. Presently: "So ends 
another merry mid-summer day,” he observed, 
and I heard a faint sigh follow the words. “It 
has brought me right good sport, whose memory 
shall §weeten all my long year.” Evidently he 
got a day on the water each season. I tried to 
be glad that he had done well; I said I was, but 
my voice was not convincing. He detected its 
false ring instantly. “And you, good master,” 
he said, "have catched. I doubt not, an honest 
store of fishes?” I said, not too amiably, that 
I had risen several big trout, but had grassed 
nothing all day. “Tush, tush.!” he observed; 
“what make of angler is this?” I considered 
whether I might, without all loss of self-respect, 
take tins venomous ancient by his admirable 
middle and heave him into the river. I decided 
that at all cost I must keep my hands off him. 
I owed my fishing to a church man, and the 
clergy hang together.' 
I busied myself with casting above some par¬ 
ticularly oily rings. “And yet,” he remarked 
critically to the sunset, “he throweth deftly and 
far. But why kneeleth he?” 
I rose abruptly and went fifty yards up stream. 
I have never done a ruder thing, but I was not 
myself. And this was nothing to what I could 
have done had I not been resolved to show him 
forbearance. I stared miserably at water which 
nothing broke. The first spectral wreaths of the 
river mist were lightening the darkness under 
the further bank. 
“Good master”—unheard he had rejoined me 
-—“prithee suffer a brother angler to make closer 
acquaintance with that so far-throwing wand.” 
I held out my split cane to him dumbly. He did 
not take it, but he bent over it, peering at it 
through the small square spectacles he wore. 
“Aye,” he said, "a pretty tool and a valiant. 
But what device is this?” “That,” said I, in 
scorn of him, “is the reel. You perceive, sim¬ 
ple sir, that the line, passing through these ex¬ 
cellently contrived rings upon the so-valiant 
wand, is retained upon a central drum, and may 
be drawn off” (I drew some off) “or rolled up 
at will by the miraculous turning of this deft 
little pin.” I wound up, as ironically as I might. 
Again my humor failed to touch him. His 
eyes were round with amazement and delight. 
“Is it even so?” he breathed reverently. I per¬ 
ceived that I had to do with a lunatic or with 
a supreme artist, in either of which cases every¬ 
thing must be forgiven him. Humoring him or 
playing up to him—I cared not which, for the 
rise was over;—I indicated the gut trace. “This,” 
I said, “is the gut, made by extending the en¬ 
trails of the silkworm. See how strong it is 
and how transparent.” I tugged on it. “And 
see, here is the fly—a sedge. There are 500 
other patterns (sold at half a crown a dozen), 
all of which I have in these boxes.” I opened 
my creel and permitted him to peep within. 
“This,” I went on, “is my bottle of paraffin oil 
with which I anoint the fly to make it float more 
yarely. and so deceive and master these subtle 
fishes. There are the pincers with which I pick 
my flies out of their boxes. Here is a tube of 
dubbin—I smear it on my line, reverend sir, and 
this causes it to float most excellently. Thus 
with but one little twitch I do hook the brutes. 
Here is a piece of blotting paper to dry my 
flies withal if haply they be wetted. Here-” 
“Good gentleman,” he said, interrupting, “no 
more, I pray you. 1 am dazed! Tell me but 
one thing. How cometh it that with so many 
cunning aids, thy skill, which sufficeth surely, as 
I have seen, hath brought nothing to land in a 
long day’s angling?” I was silent. A question 
at once more pertinent and more impertinent 
had never been put to me, or one less easy to 
answer. "Behold,” he said, “these my own un¬ 
worthy weapons. My wand a single timber shoot 
of ash, my line tied up to its tip, three twisted 
strands from the tail of my good gray mare, 
and my two great bouncing bumbles fashioned 
by these fingers from the hackles of my old 
gamecock that died gloriously in Will Andrew’s 
pit a sennight come Tuesday.” As I looked at 
the dreadful tackle my heart swelled with pity 
for the man. But he had said something about 
good sport. Well, there were chub in the river; 
Y OU know ruffed grouse—monarchs of the up¬ 
lands. You know, also, that a crippled ruffed 
grouse has a trick or two for evading the game bag. 
The only ruffed grouse you can show for a day in 
the bush—unless your dog is a go* d one ant your 
luck is unusual—are the birds you got by good 
clean kills. 
There is nothing so conducive to CuSS words as 
searching for crippled birds. Men who shoot 
Lefever guns don’t know what it is to waste time 
Iruitlessly chasing cripples—they pick up their birds 
dead and hurry after fresh game. 
Any man who has swung a Lefever true on a 
rocketing pair of upland kings does not wonder at 
the result—he banks on it— 
Two Clean Kills 
The reason Lefever guns kill clean and sure and 
far is Lefever Taper Baring. 
But Taper Boring is only one of the 19 exclusive 
advantages. 
Lefever Shot Guns 
have over other makes, which are fully explained in 
our new catalogue. Study them while you are get¬ 
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Their Principles, Types and Management. By Francis 
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The most practical book for the man or boy who owns 
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FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING GO. 
