374 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[SEPT. 7, 1007. 

Daddie and I.—I. 
Newport, Ky., Aug. 15.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Notwithstanding the existent parental 
relation from my earlier recollections, Daddie 
and I were more like boys together, young and 
old, yet not too old to understand the ways that 
underlay the younger generation. Bred upon 
the north bank of the mighty St. Lawrence an 
lower Canada, his early days were filled with 
sports of woods and stream, and, when in after 
years his well stored mind was unbosomed of 
its treasures of woods lore, the infant son be- 
came its willing repository. : 
True, I left Canada too young to realize at 
first hand the many things he had learned from 
his father before him, but Daddie was a faith- 
ful historian and I early received at his lips the 
unsullied truth as near as may be, of the ever 
hungry striped perch, the uncertain but voracious 
black bass, and the ferocious though rarer maski- 
nongé; of the glorious water upon whose further 
shore I first saw the light of day, of the myriad 
geese and ducks and snipe, the plenteous grouse, 
the fewer woodcock and less frequent quail; of 
the hares, innumerable squirrels, black and red, 
and countless other small fur bearers; and I saw 
all these with his eyes as though they swam, or 
ran, or flew, but now before my own. 
While the hunting and fishing of his boyhood 
and early manhood in far away Canada were 
different matters from my own in northern Ken- 
tucky—and it is a far cry indeed from the old 
farmstead on the north bank‘of the three-mile- 
wide St. Lawrence near the head of the Thou- 
sand Islands, with its steady flow, scarcely ris- 
ing or falling more than a foot or two, to the 
south bank of the lesser, though fickle and turbu- 
lent Ohio, with its fluctuating depth from naught 
to more than seventy feet—still I came to know 
them well under his guiding hand, and few holi- 
days found us not afield in quest of fish or game. 
At very tender years I was beginning to learn 
all those arts and wiles of venerie that it had 
taken Daddie the best part of a lifetime to .ac- 
quire, and it is no exaggeration to say that I 
was a hunter and fisherman, born and bred, long 
before either rod or gun had ever met my hands. 
On our earlier hunts together I was more than 
content to enact the role of hunting dog while 
Daddie handled the gun, and few could do either 

better. He was an efficient field shot and a 
clean, old fashioned sportsman for sport’s sake 
itself, while I learned the haunts of beast and 
bird and could find them in their hiding places 
and flush them with the unerring certainty of 
a well trained setter dog. Few dead birds or 
cripples escaped my sharp eyes, and Daddie 
often said that I was better than a brace of 
pointers in the field. 
After a while, however, it became irksome 
and unsatisfying only to find game and never 
to do the shooting, and I fairly longed to carry 
a gun myself. Deeming me yet too young for 
this final test, though, Daddie was loath indeed 
to far. True, he knew that in actual 
knowledge of the craft I was little short of being 
his equal, still he hesitated Jong before that 
momentous step was taken. He held me off for 
quite a period with a curious expedient that, 
while it did not wholly satisfy my yearning, I 
have never regretted. He showed me how to 
aim, using either a stick or an unloaded gun 
for the purpose, by aiming at some stationary 
object at first, a knot hole in the barn or a 
chunk of driftwood in a tree. 
“Keep your gun down at first; look hard right 
at the object with both eyes wide open. Then 
throw your gun up as quickly as you can right 
in line with the object and your eye. Do it in 
one movement. Don’t shift the gun about if 
you can avoid it. Don’t look at your gun sights. 
Be ready to fire the instant the barrel connects 
the object with your eye. Aim at a moving 
target just as though it were still, but shoot for 
its head.” 
This advice was dinned into my ears morn- 
ing, noon and night, at home and in the fields, 
and I spent many hours with empty gun or stick 
in hand, putting the lesson in practice, until I 
at length became expert at aiming long before 
I had actually owned or fired a gun. 
I had a boy chum about this time, Jerome 
7 
go So 
Clarke, or “Jerry,” as we called him, for short. 
He went to a fashionable private academy in 
Cincinnati, while I daily wended my way to the 
good old Second District school, but we went 
and came together, for Jerry and I had a bond 
of sympathy that kept us close together—we both 
loved guns. Jerry’s father had a number of them 
in his case at home, but he was in poor health 
and unable to enjoy their use. He was anxious 
to have Jerry taught to handle them. Thus it 
was that Daddie, who was an old-time sports- 
man and glad of the chance, readily volunteered 
to take us out and teach us how to shoot. He 
had no gun of his own then, but among a lot 
of more or less ancient ones, useful mainly as 

relics, was a beautiful little muzzleloader of 
fourteen gauge which Mr. Clarke eagerly loaned 
Daddie, in whose skillful hands it soon gave 
a good account of them both. 
The only other gun in the case even approxi- 
mately suited to our purpose was a large Enfield 
military rifle of heavy caliber and weight, which 
fell to the lot of Jerry, and although it never 
did much harm to the game we encountered, it 
furnished a constant source of splendid exercise 
to the unfortunate boy who carried it around. 
Everybody was now armed except myself, and 
there was nothing left in the case but a huge 
and ungainly flintlock musket, whose excessive 
length, approaching nearly six feet, was an in- 
surmountable obstacle to my puny strength. It 
was a good deal of a drawback to the hunting 
that one of the party for want of a gun was 
required to play dog, and many squabbles over 
whose turn it was to shoot the unwieldy En- 
field, and whose to dive into the thickets and 
brush piles were continually arising, with Daddie 
as the patient umpire. 
So the fact became growingly apparent that 
Johnnie must have a gun of his own, and it was 
Jerry’s lovely, gentle mother who brought it 
about, for when that whole-souled, generous 
woman found a frequent will to do a kind act 
She just as certainly found a way. On the way 
down Sycamore street from school one after- 
noon Jerry and I stopped, transfixed before the 
window of a second-hand store wherein was 
displayed the object of our desires. In one cor- 
ner of the dirty, grimy window was an equally 
dirty, grimy gun—only a little rusty sawed-off 
musket of the old muzzleloading Springfield pat- 
tern, with iron ramrod, ponderous lock and ham- 
mer, and two steel bands encircling the barrel 
and stock and serving in no delicate manner to 
bind the two together. Still to the youthful eyes 
peering in eagerly at its many charms it was a 
prize indeed. 
“Let’s goin and price it,’ said the readier 
Jerry, and in we bolted, out of breath. 
The proprietor came out from the rear and in 
answer to our breathless queries, with a know- 
ing smile handed out the gun for our inspec- 
tion. And such an inspection as it got! What 
with hefting it and guessing at its weight, rais- 
ing the hammer and, boy-like, Snapping it down 
again, to the imminent peril of the nipple, aim- 
ing at imaginary targets all about the store. we 
eventually wore his patience out and he finally 
said, somewhat shortly: 
“Vell, if you got two tollar you can haf te 
gun.” 
Just fancy! Only two dollars for that little 
gun. Wasn't it cheap! We'd go right home and 
get the money and—wouldn’t he keep it for us 
till we got back? 
“Yes,” said the half angry, half amused Jew, 
as he put the gun back in the window; “if you 
little fellers ain’t too long about it.” 
Home we went, double quickly, only to find 
disappointment. Daddie was out of work just 
then and broke flat. Times were hard, and loose 
dollars were more scarce even than guns, so the 
latter would have to wait. Well. we just had 
to have that gun, but we had no money and we 
were certainly in a bad way, until our good angel 
intervened in the person of Mrs. Clarke. who 
overheard us discussing Ways and means and 
came to the rescue with the precious two dol- 
lars, after earnestly inquiring from two wholly 
partial witnesses as to the fitness of the weapon 
for our use: 
“Was it a good gun?” 
“Oh, my, yes!’ 
“Was it quite safe?” 
“We should say so!” 
“Was there any danger at all in it? 
“Goodness gracious, no!’ 
And so on until the needed money changed 
hands. We scooted for the shop. Another hand 
to hand change followed, and, like a blushing 
bride we brought our darling home for her to 
see. 
Her gentle, quizzical smile is with me yet. I 
know now that the little gun’s personal appear- 
ance was sadly short of her anticipation of its 
looks, based as it was upon our too glowing ac- 
counts, but the unalloyed happiness she saw in 
two radiant faces would have gilded rusty iron. 
It was enough that it pleased us, for that which 
contented others always gave the sincerest pleas- 
ure to that noble woman. We always said she 
looked very like the amiable yet stately and aris- 
tocratic Martha Washington, and never more so 
than when she beamed upon us that day. 
Daddie looked over our purchase more criti- 
cally, but at length remarked, in a rather non- 
committal way: 
“I would not be surprised if it would throw 
shot fairly well.” 
“Why, of course it will,” 
chorus. 
With that he took the gun and gave “her” a 
first-class cleaning and us an object lesson in 
doing it, at the same time. Afterward he showed 
us how to load; how much powder, wadding 
and shot to put in, and how much not; how to 
place the cap on the nipple after the gun was 
loaded, and not before; how not to blow down 
the muzzle to ascertain if it were loaded; and 
lastly, never under any circumstances to point 
the gun, loaded or unloaded, at any human being 
or other thing than game in season, under 
penalty of having it smashed forthwith. 
In a word, the old-time sportsman sought by 
precept and consistent example to transmit and 
inculcate in two willing boys every scrap of 
sporting lore that years of experience had gone 
so far toward making it a good and wholesome 
pastime, and fraught with fear and danger to 
no one else. 
These early lessons were never forgotten and 
they have served in many instances to make 
better men of better boys. The succeeding days 
afield, of which more anon, were haleyon ones 
indeed for us. Game aplenty came to the share 
of the little gun. Each unsuccessful shot served 
only as an apology for the powder, shot. the cap, 
or even the boy, but never the gun—it needed 
none! Every killing discharge was a pean of 
triumph for all. I tenderly cared for and car- 
ried that little musket for many years, and it 
gave me more real pleasure than any other gui 
I ever owned. Even when fortuitous circum- 
stance later brought the showy double muzzle 
and following breechloader, and again the more 
convenient lever action repeater, and at last the 
improved take down magazine gun, and their 
humble and homely predecessor went to a2 
younger sportsman, to gladden his heart in 
turn, its memory hangs round me still, and TI 
often wish I had it now—not to shoot, but just 
to hang upon my wall, mute reminder of the 
days that were, but can never come again. 
Joun S. Roesuck, Jr. 
A Texas Freighter in the ’60s. 
ALL this talk ‘of disappearing game and the 
necessity for enacting stringent laws for the 
protection of game birds and animals and song 
birds, comes as a striking contrast to the 
veteran hunter who is familiar with the wild 
conditions of our western country in the ’6os. 
It would require a more able pen than mine to: 
convey a true idea of what Western Texas 
” 
was the ratifying 

was. 
in 1868. Then it was not necessary to seek 
game. All kinds, from buffalo to squirrels, 
from wild turkeys to jacksnipe, 
abundance. 
Old Fort Fillmore, later called Fort Stock- 
ton; and by the Pecos River, out of San 
Antonio, Texas, was the wagon route across 
were there im 
Texas to the Rio Grande and the Mexican 
border. It passed just south of the Staked 
Plains. The road for many miles followed 
along the Devil’s Run, a beautiful clear stream, 



































































































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