shoulder in her endeavor to get after 
the fleeing boy. A shout brought up the 
native hunter, and together we buried 
the boy under the shadow of the big 
rock, piling boulders upon him to pre- 
vent the hyenas and jackals from dig- 
ging him up. That was my narrowest 
escape, and it shook my nerve up for 
quite a bit. 
Sir CHARLES PIERS, Bart., 
Vancouver, B. C. 
Winning a Chicken Pie 
DEAR ForEST & STREAM: 
‘THIS incident occurred way back in 
1884, when I was about 15 years 
old. Father operated a ginnery, which 
was located on a public road on the 
edge of a small woods about three 
hundred yards from our country home. 
It was in the Fall and there had been 
several good white frosts that had 
nipped the leaves and potato vines and 
rag weeds. I was engineer at the gin- 
nery. Mother and several of the 
neighbors of our community were try- 
ing their luck at raising chickens of 
various kinds. We had quite a gang 
of white leghorns in our lot, and they 
used to feed in a patch of woods south 
of our home. 
They were getting along nicely till 
one day a large hawk spied them and 
made a raid. Every day, one by one, 
they disappeared. Now if you want to 
see the ire of a woman rise, just let 
something happen to her chickens that 
she has so faithfully cared for till they 
are nearly grown. That old hawk must 
have been a terrible glutton, or had a 
partner in the business, for every day 
a fine hen would disappear from some 
of the homes in the neighborhood. One 
day all the good ladies held a confer- 
ence. Now fellows let me tell you, 
when the ladies begin to confer, some- 
thing is going to happen. Well, they 
agreed to offer an old-fashioned chicken- 
pie to any one who would kill that old 
hawk, or put an end to his depreda- 
tions. 
Boys, have any of you ever been to 
one of those old-fashioned corn shuck- 
ings like they had when I was a boy 
some 30 or 40 years ago? If you have, 
you surely love chicken pie, and know 
what good food is. When it was an- 
nounced that the ladies had put a 
bounty on the head of that old hawk, 
I said to myself, here is where I shine. 
All of the men and boys of the neigh- 
borhood got busy. They went after 
Mr. Hawk like a gang of officers try- 
ing to run down a culprit who has a 
reward offered for his arrest. They 
hunted him at night with torch lights. 
They tried to trap him. They tried to 
waylay him. But he was too cunning 
to be caught. Well, I just kept quiet, 
but kept a sharp lookout for the old 
thief. 
One afternoon, just before sunset, 
while at my engine, I chanced to look 
at a patch of stubble land a quarter of 
a mile away south of the ginnery, and 
what did I see, but that hawk with his 
great wings outstretched, gliding back 
and forth across the stubble about five 
feet above the ground hunting a rabbit 
for his evening meal. I just stood and 
watched him, and really admired the 
way he gracefully glided along and 
turned about till he had covered every 
rod of that field, and had satisfied him- 
self that bunny rabbit wasn’t at home. 
Finally he gave up the search and 
headed straight up a small branch that 
ran past the ginhouse, about 50 yards 
away. I watched him until he entered 
the woods. Now I knew he was hunt- 
ing a place to put up for the night, and 
I said out loud, “old boy, you are my 
meat.” 
As we had a big day’s ginning, I had 
to stick to my engine till after dark. 
Finally the last bale was through, and 
I drew the fire from the fire box and 
watered it out, and went home for sup- 
per. Although I was tired and hungry 
I could hardly wait to eat. I owned an 
old double-barrel cap gun, the kind 
that was used before the advent of the 
modern breech loaders. It was already 
loaded, but I didn’t intend to take any 
chances or risk any weak points, so I 
just poured in another charger of shot 
and rammed in a wad of paper to hold 
it in. I also removed the cap and picked 
some fresh powder in the tube, and put 
a new cap on. It was my job to go 
back to the gin every night before re- 
tiring to look around and see to it that 
all the fire was out. I told the folks 
I was going to see about the gin. I 
went to my room and slipped on a pair 
of old bed-room slippers, got my gun 
and slipped out the back way. There 
was a small path that ran through the 
woods beyond the gin-house and I re- 
membered that there was a thick clump 
of small pines on the side of the path, 
about the middle of the patch of woods, 
and I guessed that there it was where 
the hawk was making for when I saw 
him enter the woods just at sundown. 
It was pretty dark, but the stars were 
shining brightly overhead, so I didn’t 
take a torch or any kind of light. I just 
slipped along up the path till I came to 
the bunch of pines and stopped and 
lecoked up and right within a few feet 
of my gun was the hawk sitting on a 
limb, with his body close up to the tree 
trunk, and his head under his wing, 
sound asleep. 
My heart jumped up in my throat 
and pounded in my ears so hard I was 
afraid the hawk would hear it and wake 
up. I eased the old gun to my shoulder, 
aligned the barrel and pulled the trig- 
ger. I never heard such a report as 
that gun made out there in those woods 
on that still night. I must admit that 
I was really frightened. That old 
hawk went straight up in the air and 
came down with a thud like a rock. 
I picked myself up and grabbed my gun 
and hawk and lit for home. Running 
into the house I dropped the hawk at 
mother’s feet and yelled, “chicken pie; 
did I win it?” I’ll say I did. We lost 
no more chickens, and I received con- 
gratulations from all the fair ladies, 
and chicken pie awaited me wherever 
I chanced to go. 
N. T. RIcHARDSON, M. D. 
Piedmont, S. C. 
Judging from the number of communica- 
tions we receive each month, the “‘Forest and 
Stream” Letters Section is most popular. In 
this issue we are printing a quantity of an- 
swers to correspondents and several new 
topics are opened. 
The editors wish to advise readers that 
communications are always welcome and that 
they will publish as many each month as 
space permits. 
Photos are highly desirable and should be 
supplied with the letter whenever possible. 


A mountain camp 
Page 38 
