


LOR. AND STREAM. 





MIE RAG ANID GU 



The Boy Behind the Man. 
Newrort, Ky., Aug. 5.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: I had been patiently fishing all morn- 
ing and Duck Pond had given up a goodly 
string of little sunfish and yellow catfish. It 
was warm, I was hungry and tired and had all 
the fish I wanted, so concluded to go home. 
Untying my coarse line from the straight syca- 
more top that served me for a rod, I carefully 
concealed the rod in the nearest blackberry 
patch against another visit, and started up the 
path for home. I was half way to the top of the 
bank when I almost stepped upon a small ani- 
mal crouching in the middle of the path, as 
though lying in wait. It was about a foot in 
length, of rather squatty build, its body covered 
with a thick coat of glossy, dark brown fur with 
the under parts shaded off into a lighter tint, 
and its tail was some six or eight inches in 
length. Its head was pointed away from me, 
and it lay so still that I thought perhaps it 
slept. 
Drawing back slowly so as not to alarm it, I 
recovered my discarded fishing pole and, with 
it upraised in my hands like the two-handed 
sword of the Crusader of old, stole stealthily 
back toward my prey, Reaching an easy strik- 
ing distance, I brought down my primitive but 
effective weapon upon its head with force 
sufficient to have cracked its skull. Hastily re- 
covering, I drew back for another blow, but 
there was no need for a second—or indeed any 
—as a closer inspection confirmed and already 
existent doubt. which needed only the few~flies 
buzzing about its open mouth and the faint ani- 
mal odor to tell me that he had been dead 
some time. 
I had never seen anything like it before. It 
was undoubtedly a wild animal, its pretty skin 
was surely worth saving and I noticed that 
there was a not unpleasant odor about the:little 
animal that somehow reminded me strangely of 
the greenhouse at home. So I resolved to take 
it home for Daddie to look at. Gathering it in 
-one hand and my string of fish in the other, I 
once more set forth upon my interrupted way. 
Half-way home I ran into a group of distillery 
hands enjoying their noon hour and they re- 
garded my trophy with amused curiosity as I 
passed along. One of them even called after 
me good-naturedly: 
“What you going to do with that rat, sonny?” 
“Huh! Rat, indeed!” I thought. If there 
was anything in this great wide world that was 
more unlike those noisome, filthy and sneaking 
vermin that were always associated in my mind 
with steel-traps in dirty and vile-smelling back- 
yards, it was the lovely wild creature I carried 
home so proudly that day. 
How well I remember the air of conquering 
hero with which I marched into the side yard 
an hour late for dinner, and grandly laid my 
prize down before Daddie for the parental in- 
spection, which was spontaneous and laudatory 
in the extreme: 
“My, that’s'a whopping big muskrat! 
did you get him, Jackie?” 
“Up at Duck Pond. Cracked him on the head 
with a club,”’ was the eager answer, striving to 
be nonchalant. 
“What, you don’t mean to say you killed 
him with a stick?” 
Then, picking it up, he held: it closer. a 
peculiar twinkle. came into his eye, and I saw 
that he had divined the truth. ; 
“Well, I did hit him with my fish pole, any- 
way.” said I, with a regard for a semblance of 
truth, and striving for an undeserved vindica- 
tion, but Daddie only smiled as he quietly 
said: 
“Yes, little man, I have no doubt of-it, but 
somebody else had shot him and he crawled 
out to die and you found him and cracked him 
Where 

on the head before you knew he was already 
dead.” 
My confirmatory blushes told of the accuracy 
of this center shot, and Daddie continued in an 
admonitory, though kindly voice: 
“Tf you have to talk about it, always tell the 
exact truth, son, even about a hunting or fish- 
ing incident. A lie is always pretty sure to leak 
out, and if you stick to the truth then you 
won't have to tell more lies to cover that one 
up; besides, it’s better anyway. I know that 
from the days of Baron Munchausen down; yes, 
and long before that, it has been thought per- 
missible for persons even of no mean import- 
ance to not only tell but to write and print the 
most absurd lies about the sports of field and 
stream, and gravely to foist them upon a guile- 
less public as gospel truth. Never do that, 
son; the truth about those things is good 
enough for anybody.” 
“But how’d you find it out that it was dead 
when I got it, Daddie?” 
“Oh, that was easy,” and he held the animal 
toward me, so that I caught the faint odor of 
decomposition. ‘‘You see it is not all musk. 
And then, if any other indication were wanted, 
its body is quite stiff and the eyes lack luster. 
Dig a hole in the backyard and bury it before it 
becomes offensive.” 
“What, can’t I keep its beautiful skin?” 
“No, son, it’s too far gone for that. Some- 
time later in the fall we'll go up there about 
dusk, or just before dawn, and I’ll try to shoot 
one for you. Then we can skin it and the hide 
will be in fine condition to make you a cap.” 
During the next month or two, during idle 
moments Daddie told me all about the musk- 
rats, or ““musquash,” as the Indians called them, 
explaining their haunts and habits. He told me 
how the half-breeds and Indians in Canada 
trapped and speared them in great numbers: 
that they sold large numbers of their hides to 
the fur dealers, and many persons ate their 
dark, juicy meat with much enjoyment. I re- 
member my own amazement when he told me 
that the hides only brought from five to twelve 
and a half cents apiece. 
Toward fall, just after I had become the proud 
possessor of my first gun, I started one morn- 
ing before daylight for Duck Pond in quest of 
my muskrat. I had a long, old-fashioned 
Springfield musket that had been somewhat 
tardily rescued from the corner of a greenhouse 
that burned down. The wood of its stock, ex- 
tending up the barrel almost its entire length, 
was charred and blackened all out of its original 
contour, though mainly intact: Its shooting 
powers were not impaired by this rough treat- 
ment, though often, when excusing a bad shot, 
Daddie said that it shot best around the corner 
because the barrel was bent from standing in 
the corner during the heat of the fire. If there 
was any bend to the barrel, it was downward 
at the muzzle and very slight, and for close 
shots that did not matter much. If the bend 
counted at all, the gun would be better to kill 
over the top of a hill, I told Daddie. 
Nearing the pond, I cautiously approached, 
and at length crawled up to the edge of the 
bank and lay down in the tall grass. Presently 
when I had regained my wind, peeping through 
the twigs and weeds fringing the margin of the 
pond, I saw little rippling waves circling out 
from shore, like the rings encircling a target 
with the bullseye a muskrat in their midst. He 
was idly disporting himself and just playing 
about in fancied security. 
Long I hesitated, fearing to move lest he take 
alarm; but knowing from Daddie’s relations 
how keen were their senses, I dared wait no 
longer. Quietly drawing the old gun forward 
from where it lay beside me on the grass and 
gently pushing it forward on the edge of the 
bank, it wobbled into an unsteady, momentary 

came the 
alimost, 
At a distance ot twenty-five 
aim and, before I knew it; 
vicious discharge. 
or thirty feet, chance holding the wavering 
muzzle ahead of the swimming creature's nose, 
brought the unlucky swimmers head in contact 
with a substantial portion of the charge of 
shot, sufficient to mortally wound, if not kill it 
outright, and it lay there feebly paddling its 
feet in an aimless fashion, but to my excited 
fancies slowly but surely working its way out 
into the lake. 
With an exultant whoop that was audible 
at Finchtown, and would have done credit to 
the lustiest Iroquois lungs that ever drew 
breath, I dashed: down the declivity to the 
water’s edge to retrieve my rat. He was al- 
ready beyond reach of my hands, and perhaps 
luckily so, by reason of his sharp and ready 
teeth; but I reached for him with the long- 
barreled gun, but barely touched him and 
thereby served only to hasten his voyage lake- 
ward. In a panic, I hastily dropped the drip- 
ping gun, and ran for a long piece of wild grape 
vine which I soon found, and with which I was 
enabled easily to recover my game, whose ex- 
piring struggles had now ceased. 
It was my very first quarry, the trophy of my 
own woodcraft, and oh! how I admired his un- 
graceful proportions as I ‘stretched him out on 
the grass beside me—glory enough for one day! 
The fur was prime, and an hour or two later 
when I brought this one home and Daddie had 
duly skinned him and stretched his pocket-like 
hide on an oval-shaped piece of shingle to dry, 
and I had repeated the story of its capture, 
without variations, this time, Daddie looked 
over in my direction, a faraway look in his 
eyes, and said to me: 
“Getting to be a big boy, Jack; soon be a 
man, now, most as big as your Dad.” 
Joun S. Roesuck, Jr. 


A Much.Told Tale. 
Arkin, Minn., Aug. 5.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Some years ago I told in Forest AND 
STREAM of an adventure in which I laid down 
and wrapped up in a fresh elk’s hide after which 
the weather turned cold and froze the hide, and 
[“had some little difficulty in getting out. It 
was a tale of fact which happehed just as told. 
Since then I have seen that idea worked into 
a tale of fiction and told as the personal ex- 
perience of at least half a dozen different “old 
hunters.” The last time I came across it was in 
an old copy of a boys’ paper and copied from 
a California paper. It was told as the adven- 
ture of an old plainsman of Montana, but said 
old plainsman had never seen the plains and the 
tale was contorted and impossible. Now, why 
is it that a tale must be twisted into such out- 
rageous distortions before it is fit for youthful 
ears? E. P. JAQUES. 
Zoological Garden at Peking. 
Consut W. T. Gracey, of Tsingtau, cites an- 
other instance of the success of German busi- 
ness methods in the Far East in the announce- 
ment that a zoological garden is about to be 
installed at Peking by the Emperor’s order. The 
animals were purchased in Hamburg by the 
Chinese minister at Berlin for $2,000,000. They 
were shipped in seventy cages via the steamer 
Ferdinand Laeisz, which touched at Manila’ on 
May 23. There are elephants, tigers, lions, 
zebras, monkeys, crocodiles, giraffes, pelicans, 
flamas, bears, geese, buffaloes, etc. The collec- 
tion is to be placed in the Imperial gardens, 
which may then claim to be the finest zoological 
garden in the Orient. 
THE Forest AND STREAM may be obtained from 
any) newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 

