more scientific. Slow, quiet hitches 
from copse to copse brought me to the 
realization of the fact that there were 
ten times as many squirrels and rab- 
bits as I had at first believed. 
“HE charm of this primeval weapon 
grew on me the more I used it. 
New and _= surprising possibilities 
showed themselves. I began to realize 
that with this silent weapon far more 
shooting might be had in a single small 
glade than with guns over a large 
hunting field. Practice shots might be 
indulged in on one side of the thicket 
without at all alarming wild folk on 
the other side, a hundred yards away. 
Often while so shooting, game has 
come upon me and given me wonder- 
ful opportunities. 
When I was transferred to Long 
Island, New York, my shooting was 
mainly at targets, but a month’s leave 
in Maine shooting woodchucks gave me 
real sport. One week’s hunting in the 
quiet apple orchards and along the 
mossy stone walls netted me eight 
’chucks. Indian tactics more than 
marksmanship gave results. I got fair 
shots by stalking an animal which I 
had located afar, but achieved more 
by waiting within a short distance of 
the burrow into which my prey had 
dropped. His curiosity would invari- 
ably cause him, whistling and chatter- 
ing inquiringly, to put his head out to 
see what I was doing; then it was quite 
easy to drive an arrow into his skull. 
A young red-shouldered hawk named 
Ferdinand, still in his home nest, fat- 
tened on hams and steaks from these 
kills. 
After this leave followed a period of 
hospital experience and subsequent re- 
tirement from the army. A year or 
more of building up in the open air 
was next decreed. 
As I was setting in for a long stay 
at Blocksburg, California, Dr. Pope 
spent a few days of shooting with me. 
After he went I was left to roam alone, 
and I proceeded to gather some of the 
much-coveted yew staves for the fash- 
ioning of bows. I carried my bow and 
axe, ate a lunch in the canyon where I 
happened to be at noon, and came home 
after dark down the old Indian trails. 
I was as happy as any person could be, 
just alone in the forest with my bow. 
rs fete te bow staves was a happy 
suggestion that has given point to 
many rambles, besides proving a re- 
munerative resource opened up_ by 
these mountain ranges. It was a deep 
thrill which went through me when 
Tom Murphy, the rancher and famous 
bear hunter, took me miles up the 
mountain side to a springy nook and 
showed me my first yew. Before me 
392 
stood the sturdy tree, little more than 
a shrub in size, but Napoleonic in 
power. The hundreds of years in 
which it had been laying up bow power 
had covered it with long grey beards 
of moss. As Dr. Pope has said, “Yew 
is a magic wood.” To me it is sacred. 
It brought me continually nearer re- 
covery while it led hundreds of miles 
over the Coast Range Mountains in fair 
weather and storm. 
I have often traveled twenty-five 
miles afoot to find one stave, lurking 
deep in a cool dark canyon, beside an 
icy torrent of crystal water. Now 
these treasures wait to delight true 
archers with the airy lightness and 
smooth, lightning-like response of the 
yewen long bow. 
Prospecting for yew staves had min- 
gled with game shooting during my 
happy wilderness days, I carried my 
bow and quiver as well as my axe on 

Arthur Young, well known archer, with a 
mess of carp he has shot with the bow. 
many of my shorter trips when the ex- 
tra impediment was not too annoying. 
Bear killing with the bow and arrow 
is not a new thing, even for white men. 
Maurice Thompson and his brother 
Will. killed a bear in Florida in 1875. 
In 1919 Dr. Pope and Art Young ac- 
complished the same feat; and I made 
up my mind to follow in their foot- 
steps. So as I roamed over the moun- 
tains and through canyons, I kept my 
eye weatherward for “bear sign,” as 
indications of their recent presence are 
locally called. 
The year that I came to California 
it happened that the mountains were 
sown with coyote poison so that dogs 
could not be taken out. The next year 
there was very little oak mast to at- 
tract Ursus. Still it was known that 
a medium sized bear was living among 
the thick oak brush in the vicinity of 
Lost Ridge on the Little Van Duzen 
River. One day in the middle of July 
I saw his track in the fine gravel of 
; \ 
the river bed below this spot; all sum- 
mer various cattle men reported seeing) 
“sign” in the same region.- 
hiss November Dr. Pope came to have 
his fall hunt. He invited me to join 
him one day, so I met the caravan, 
dogs, Doctor, and mules on Coleman 
Field, two miles up the mountain, at 
four in the morning. Here I was 
mounted on a_ self-possessed mule 
named inaptly Black Hawk, and fell 
into my place in the column. It was 
still dark, though we could make out 
over Naphis Peak the first grey and 
pink fingers of the day. The dogs jog- 
ged along beside us in the open, their 
coupling chains rattling. Of this little 
tinkle we were glad in the closer pas- 
sages of the trail, for it warned us from 
any danger of our horses stepping on 
the hounds. Tom found it more ex- 
pedient to chain the dogs by their col- 
lars into pairs than to put them on 
leashes; coupled dogs, like harnessed 
horses, are easily controlled. A fool 
pup who would race off on a deer scent 
was thus yoked to one who had been 
taught better. 
The bear country lay on the other 
side of a chain of mountain ridges, 
down in a large isolated canyon, in a 
section so rough that no wagon wheel 
has ever reached it. There are only 
a couple of very indistinct cattle trails 
across it. We reached the top of the 
mountain wall at Wilson Gap in about 
an hour after I had joined the party. 
To our left and three thousand feet 
below the first rays of light showed an 
opaque white lake, the fog over Kel 
Rock. We followed north along Han- 
sen Ridge for a mile and a half to 
Windy Gap, so-called because over it, 
like over a spillway of a dam, crowding 
air currents pour from one valley to 
another. Here at daybreak there al- 
ways is what amounts to a gale, so 
that a man’s camp fire is blown 
straight out from under his frying 
pan. From Windy Gap our trail 
turned down and east into the Little 
Van Duzen Canyon. It is quite brushy 
and limbs take your hat off if you are 
not careful. 
HEN we were about half a mile 
along this trial I became aware 
of a sudden change of excitement com- 
ing over the hunters and dogs. In the 
early grey light I could see Tom in 
consultation with Button, his famous 
bear hound. Button had announced by } 
wagging his tail and sniffing the 
ground that he believed there was a 
bear around. Tom questioned him 
closely, but he said, “Oh, I am very 
sure of it,’—that is he whined and 
wagged his tail. | 
(Continued on page 438) 
