The dew glistens on the leaves, the thrush sings in the bush, the soft
wind blows, and all nature welcomes him as she has the hunter since the
world began. With his bow in his hand, his arrows softly rustling in
the quiver, a horn at his back, and a hound at his heels, what more can
a man want in life?
In America our hearts have heard the low whistle of the flying arrow
and the sweet hum of the bowstring singing in the book, _The Witchery
of Archery_ by Maurice Thompson. To Will and Maurice Thompson we owe a
debt of gratitude hard to pay. The tale of their sylvan exploits in the
everglades of Florida has a charm that borders on the fay. We who shoot
the bow today are children of their fantasy, offspring of their magic.
As the parents of American archery, we offer them homage and honor.
Ernest Thompson Seton is another patron of archery to whom all who have
read _Two Little Savages_ must be eternally grateful. Not only has he
given us a reviving touch of the outdoors, but he puts the bow and
arrow in its true setting, a background of nature.
When Arthur Young, Will Compton, and I began hunting with the bow, we
wrote Will Thompson to join us. Because he is such a commanding figure
in the history of our craft, I think it proper to quote from one of his
letters:
"MY DEAR DR. POPE:
"The _Sunset Magazine_ containing your charming account of Ishi and
your hunting adventures, and the bunch of photographs of the transfixed
deer, quail, and rabbits came duly, and are mine, now, tomorrow, and
for life. You were very fortunate to have won your archery triumphs
where you could photograph them. I would give much indeed if I could
have photos of the scenes of my brother's and my successes in the
somber and game-thronged wilds of the gloomy Okefinokee Swamp. I think
I sent you long ago the two numbers of _Forest and Stream_ in which the
history of that most wonderful of all my outings appeared. If I did not
do so I will loan you the only copy I have. Let me know.
"I am glad, so glad, that you young athletic men are following the wild
trails armed with the most romantic weapon man ever fashioned, and I
would give almost any precious thing I hold to fare with you once to
the game land of your choice, and to watch and wait by a slender trail
while you and your young, strong comrades stole through the secret
haunts of the wild things, and to listen to the faint footfalls of the
coming deer, roused by your entrance into their secret lairs. To see
the soft and devious approach of the wary thing; to see the lifted
light head turned sharply back toward the evil that roused it from its
bed of ferns; to feel the strong bow tightening in my hand as the thin,
hard string comes back; to feel the leap of the loosened cord, the jar
of the bow, and see the long streak of the going shaft, and hear the
almost sickening 'chuck' of the stabbing arrow. No one can know how I
have loved the woods, the streams, the trails of the wild, the ways of
the things of slender limbs, of fine nose, of great eager ears, of mild
wary eyes, and of vague and half-revealed forms and colors. I have been
their friend and mortal enemy. I have so loved them that I longed to
kill them. But I gave them far more than a fair chance.
"How many I have missed to one I have killed! How often the fierce
arrow hissed its threat close by the wide ears! How often the puff of
lifted feathers has marked the innocuous passage of my very best arrow!
How often the roar of wings has replied to the 'chuck' of my
steel-head shaft as it stabbed the tree branch under the grouse's feet!
_Oh, le bon temps, que de siècle de fer_.
"Let me know whether I sent you _Deep in Okefinokee Swamp_. I enclose
you a little poem published long ago in _Forest and Stream_ and picked
up by the _Literary Digest_ and other periodicals. You will, I think,
feel the love of the bow, and the outdoors, as well as the great cry
for the lost brother running through the long sob that pervades it.
"Send me anything you publish, for I know I should be pleased. Love to
you and a handgrasp to your comrade archers.
"WILL THOMPSON."
After the Civil War, where both youths fought in the Confederate Army
and Maurice was wounded, they returned to their Southern home, broken
in health, reduced in circumstances, and deprived of firearms by
Government restrictions. They turned to the bow and hunting as
naturally as a boy turns to play. Out of their experiences we have a
lyric of exquisite purity, _The Witchery of Archery_.
As a result of the interest stimulated by the recount of their
exploits, the National Archery Association was established and held its
first tournament at Chicago in the year 1879. It has ever since
nurtured the sport and furthered competitive enthusiasm.
Maurice later became a noted author, Will an attorney-at-law, the dean
of American archers and a poet of remarkably happy expression. Here I
feel at liberty to insert one of Will Thompson's verses, sent me in
personal communications:
AN ARROW SONG
A song from green Floridian vales I heard,
Soft as the sea-moan when the waves are slow;
Sweeter than melody of brook or bird,
Keener than any winds that breathe or blow;
A magic music out of memory stirred,
A strain that charms my heart to overflow
With such vast yearning that my eyes are blurred.
Oh, song of dreams, that I no more shall know!
Bewildering carol without spoken word!
Faint as a stream's voice murmuring under snow,
Sad as a love forevermore deferred,
Song of the arrow from the Master's bow,
Sung in Floridian vales long, long ago.
WILL H. THOMPSON.
_A memory of my brother Maurice._
The Thompsons devoted much of their bow shooting to birds. Not only did
they hunt, but they studied the abundant avian life of the Florida
coast.
An archer must always, perforce, study animate nature and learn its
ways before he can capture it. In our early training with Ishi, the
Indian, he taught us to look before he taught us to shoot. "Little bit
walk, too much look," was his motto. The roving eye and the light step
are the signs of the forest voyageur.
The ideal way for an archer to travel is to carry on his shoulders a
knapsack containing a light sleeping bag and enough food to last him a
week. With me this means coffee, tea, sugar, canned milk, dried fruit,
rice, cornmeal, flour and baking powder mixture, a little bacon,
butter, and seasoning. This will weigh less than ten pounds. With other
minor appurtenances in the ditty bag, including an arrow-repairing kit,
one's burden is less than twenty pounds, an easy load.
If you have a dog, make him carry his own dry meal in little
saddle-bags on his back, as Dan Beard suggests. Then, with two dozen
arrows in your quiver, and your bow, the open trail lies ahead. There
is always meat to be had for the shooting. The camp fire and your dog
are companions at night, and at dawn all the world rolls out before you
as you go. It is a happy life!
When Ishi started to shoot with me, one bowman after another appeared
on the scene to join us. Among the first came Will Compton, a man of
mature years and many experiences. Brought up on the plains, he learned
to shoot the bow with the Sioux Indians. As a boy of fourteen he shot
his first deer with an arrow. From that time on, deer, elk, antelope,
birds of all sorts, and even buffalo fell before this primitive weapon.
He later hunted with the gun until the very ease of killing turned him
against it. So when he came to us, he was a seasoned archer. Upon a
visit to a Japanese archery gallery in the Panama-Pacific Exposition he
met for the first time Arthur Young, also an expert hunter with the
gun. A friendship sprang up between them, and Compton taught Young to
shoot the bow.
Compton had worked in the shop of Barnes, the bowmaker of Forest Grove,
Oregon, and later he went into the Cascade Mountains and cut yew staves
with an idea of selling them to the English bowyers. The Great War of
1914 prevented this, and so we had an unlimited supply of yew wood for
use.
We three gravitated together and shot with Ishi until his last sickness
and departure. Then our serious work began. We found it not only a
delightful way of hunting, but a trio makes success more certain in the
field.
In California there is an abundance of game; small animals exist
everywhere and there is no better training than to stalk the wary
ground squirrel or the alert cottontail. These every archer should
school himself to hit before he ventures after larger beasts.
Infinite patience and practice are needed to make a hunter. He must
earn his right to take life by the painful effort of constant shooting.
We shot together, and many are the bags of game we filled. We
discovered in the humble ground squirrel a delectable morsel more
palatable than chicken; re-discovered it, we may say, because the
Indian knew it first. In killing these little pests we take to the open
fields, approach a burrow by creeping up a gully or dip in the land,
rise up and shoot at such distances as we can. I recall one day when
Young and I got twenty-four squirrels with the bow. Upon another
occasion Young by himself secured seventeen in one morning; the last
five were killed with five successive arrows, the last squirrel being
forty-two paces away.
Rabbits are best hunted in company. Here the startled rodent skips
briskly off, down his accustomed run, only to meet another archer
standing motionless, ready with his arrow.
It seems legitimate with this rudimentary weapon to shoot animals on
the stand, or set, a sporting permit not granted to the devotee of the
shotgun, who has a hundred chances to our one.
We found from the very first that the arrow was more humane than the
gun. Counting all hunters, for every animal brought home with the gun,
whether duck, quail, or deer, at least two are hit and die in pain in
the brush.
Just to illustrate this, Mr. Young reported to me the results of his
shooting with a small rifle at ground squirrels. So expert is he that
to hit a squirrel in any spot but the head is quite unusual. In one
day's shooting between himself and his young son, they hit thirty-six
animals, sixteen of these escaped and disappeared down their burrows,
there to die later of their wounds.
[Illustration: THE PATRON SAINTS OF AMERICAN ARCHERY, WILL AND MAURICE
THOMPSON, AS THEY APPEARED IN 1878]
With the arrow it is different. Not only is the destructive power as
great as a small bullet, but the shaft holds the animal so that it
cannot escape. Practically none are lost in our hunts. A strange
phenomenon is seen in larger animals; they are easier to kill with an
arrow than small ones. A shot in either the chest or abdominal cavity
of a deer is invariably fatal in a few minutes; while a rabbit may
carry an arrow off until the obstructing undergrowth checks his flight.
It seems that their vital areas and blood vessels being smaller, are
less readily injured by the missile. A bullet can crash into the brain
of an animal, tear out a mass of tissue and generally shatter his
structure, but cause little bleeding. An arrow wound is clean-cut and
the hemorrhage is tremendous, but if not immediately fatal, it heals
readily and does little harm. The pain is no greater with the arrow
than with the bullet.
Our hunting of squirrel and rabbits was merely preparatory to the
taking of larger game; but even on our more pretentious expeditions, we
fill the vacant hours with lesser shooting and fill the camp kettle
with sweet tidbits.
Many a quail, partridge, sage hen, or grouse has flown from the heather
into our bag transfixed by a feathered shaft. Both Compton and Young
have shot ducks and geese, some on the wing. But we cannot compete with
the experiences of Maurice Thompson who, shooting ninety-eight arrows,
landed sixteen ducks on the wing.
Some amusing incidents have occurred in bird shooting. We consider the
bluejay a legitimate mark any day; he is a rascal of the deepest dye,
so we always shoot at him. Compton once tried one of his long shots at
a jay on the ground nearly eighty yards off. His line was good, but his
shot fell short. The arrow skidded and struck the bird in the tail just
as he left the ground for flight. The two rose together and sailed off
into space, like an aeroplane, with a preposterously long rudder, the
arrow out behind. They slowly wheeled in a circle a hundred yards in
diameter when the bird, nearing the archer, fell exhausted at his feet.
Compton picked up the jay, drew the arrow from the shallow skin wound
above his tail, and tossed him in the air. He disappeared with a volley
of expletives.
With an arrow it is also possible to shoot fish. Many wise old trout,
incurious and contented, deep in the shadowed pool, have been coaxed to
the frying pan through the archer's skill. Well I recall once, how
shooting fish not only brought us meat, but changed our luck. Young and
I were on a bear hunt. It had been a long, weary and unsuccessful quest
of the elusive beast. Bears seemed to have become extinct, so we took
to shooting trout in a quiet little meadow stream. Having buried an
arrow in the far bank, with a short run and a leap Young cleared the
brook and landed on the greensward beyond. The succulent turf slipped
beneath his feet and, like an acrobat, the archer turned a back
somersault into the cold mountain water. Bow, clattering arrows,
camera, field glasses and man, all sank beneath the limpid surface.
With a shout of laughter he clambered to the bank, his faithful bow
still in his hand, his quiver empty of arrows, but full of water. After
a hasty salvage of all damaged goods, we journeyed along, no worse for
the wetting. But immediately we began to see bear signs and ultimately
got our bruin. Young later said that if he had known the change of luck
that went with a good ducking, he would have tried it sooner.
We have often been asked if we do not poison our arrow points. Most
people seem to have the idea that an arrow is too impotent to cause
death; they conceive it a refined sort of torture and have no
conception of its destructive nature.
It is true that we thought at first of putting poison on our arrows
intended for lions, and we did coat some broad-heads with mucilage and
powdered strychnine, but we never used them. My physiologic experiments
with curare, the South American arrow poison, aconitin, the Japanese
Ainu poison, and buffogen, the Central American poison, had convinced
me that strychnine was more deadly. It would not harm the meat in the
dilution obtained in the blood, and it was cheap and effective.
Buffogen is obtained by the natives by taking the tropical toad, Buffo
Nigra, enclosing it in a segment of bamboo, heating this over a slow
fire and gathering the exuded juice of the dessicated batrachian. It is
a very powerful substance, having an action similar to that of
adrenalin and strychnine.
Salamandrine, an extract obtained from the macerated skin of the common
red water-dog, is also violently toxic.
But we had a disgust for these things. We soon learned, moreover, that
our arrows were sufficient without these adjuncts, and we deemed it
unsportsmanlike to consider them. Therefore, we abandoned the idea.
Ishi knew of the employment of these killing substances, but he did not
use them. In his tribe they made a poison by teasing a rattlesnake and
having it strike a piece of deer's liver. This was later buried in the
ground until it rotted, and the arrow points were smeared with this
revolting material. It was a combination of crotalin venom and ptomaine
poisons, a very deadly mess.
We much prefer the bright, clean knife-blade of our broad-heads to any
other missile.
The principles involved in seeking game with the bow and arrow are
those of the still hunt, only more refined.
An archer's striking distance extends from ten to one hundred yards.
For small animals it lies between ten and forty; for large game from
forty to eighty or a hundred. The distance at which most small game
flush varies with the country in which they live, the nature of their
enemies, and the prevalence of hunters. Quail and rabbits usually will
permit a man to approach them within twenty or thirty yards. This they
have learned is a safe distance for a fox or wildcat who must hurl
himself at them. It is quite a fair distance for any man with any
weapon, particularly the bow.
Most small game, especially rabbits, have sufficient curiosity to stand
after their first startled retreat. Beneath a bush or clump of weeds
they squat and watch on the _qui vive_. The arrow may find them there
when it strikes, but often the very flash of its departure and the
quick movement of the hand send the little beastie flying to his cover.
Here two sportsmen working together succeed better; one attracts the
rabbit's attention, the other shoots the shot.
[Illustration: SHOOTING BRUSH RABBITS]
[Illustration: ARCHERS IN AMBUSH]
[Illustration: ISHI RIDING A HORSE FOR THE FIRST TIME]
The marmot or woodchuck, is an impudent and cautious animal and he is a
difficult mark for a bowman's aim. But nothing has more comic
situations than an afternoon spent in a ground-hog village. After an
incontinent scuttle to his burrow, an old warrior backs into his hole,
then brazenly lifts his head and fastens his glittering eye upon you.
The contest of quickness then begins; the archer and the marmot play
shoot and dodge until one after the other all the arrows are exhausted
or a hit is registered. The ground-hog never quits. I can recall one
strenuous noon hour in an outcropping of rock where, between shattered
arrows, precipitous chasing of transfixed old warriors, defiant
whistlers on all sides, we piled up nearly a dozen victims.
Quail hunting requires careful shooting, but it is good training for
the bowman. A sentinel cock, sitting on a low limb, warns his covey of
our approach, but he himself makes a gallant mark for the archer. I saw
Compton spit such a bird on his arrow at fifty yards, while a confused
scurrying flock made easy shooting for two hunters. I am ashamed to say
that we have often taken advantage of the evening roosting of these
birds in trees to secure a supper for ourselves.
But the archer must exercise caution in this team work in the brush. He
should never forget that an arrow will kill a man as readily as it does
an animal and that one should always consider where his shot ultimately
will land, both for the purpose of finding his shaft and avoiding
accidents. Arrows have a great habit of glancing. Once when hunting
quail in a patch of willow in a dry wash, Compton shot at a bird on a
branch, missed it, and at the same instant Young, who was on the
opposite side of the thicket, heard a thwack at his right and turned to
find a broad-head arrow buried up to the barbs in a willow limb just
the height of the heart. It gave us all pause for thought. Look before
you shoot!
While small game may be taken by tactics of moderate cunning, larger
and more wary animals must be hunted by artful measures. Deer, still
abundant in our land, and properly safeguarded by game laws, test the
woodsman's skill to the utmost. To learn the art of finding deer, or
successful approach and ultimate capture, one must study life in the
open. Let him read the work of Van Dyke on still-hunting [1]
[Footnote 1: _The Still-hunter_, by Van Dyke. The Macmillan Co.]
to gain some idea of the many problems entailed.
In our country we have the Columbia black tail deer. Of course, only
bucks should be shot; as an old forest ranger said to me, "Does ain't
deer." And no one but a starving man would shoot a fawn. Here bucks are
hunted only in the fall, just as they shed their velvet and before the
rutting season. At this time they keep pretty quiet in the brush or
seek the higher lookout points on mountain ridges. They browse mostly
at night and are to be met wandering to water or back to their beds.
The older ones lie very quietly and seldom move far from their cover.
Sometimes in the heat of the day they stir about or go to drink. The
younger bucks are more audacious and seem to feel that their wisdom and
strength can carry them anywhere. For this reason a two-year-old or
forked horn is much more frequently brought down.
It is interesting to note that even in this day of civilization and the
extinction of wild life, deer are to be found within a radius of twenty
miles from our largest cities in California. We, however, invariably
journey by rail or motor car from fifty to three hundred miles to do
most of our hunting. We seek those regions that are most primeval. Here
game is largely in an undisturbed condition. From some station or
outpost we pack with horses into the foothills or higher levels of the
Coast Range or Sierra Nevada Mountains. Having made camp in a sheltered
spot, we hunt on foot over the adjacent country.
Just at dawn and at sunset are the favorite times for finding deer.
The hunters rise from their sleeping bags, make a hasty meal of coffee
and cakes, and long before the light of dawn sweeps the eastern sky,
they must be on the trail. Silently and alert they enter the land of
suspected deer. Taking advantage of every bit of cover, traveling into
the wind where possible, looking at every shadow, every spot of moving
color, they advance. Where trails exist they follow these, or if the
ground be carpeted with soft pine needles, they flit between the deeper
shades of the forest, watchful, and hearing every woodland sound.
Often the crashing bound of a deer through the brush proves that
cautious though the archer may be, more cautious is the deer. Or having
seen him first, the archer crouches, advances to a favorable spot,
gauges the distance, clears his eye, and nerves himself for a supreme
effort. He draws his sturdy bow till the sharpened barb pricks his
finger and bids him loose--a hit, a leap, a clattering flight. Watching
and immovable, the archer listens with straining ears. He must not
stir, he must not follow; later he can trail the quarry. Give the
wounded deer time to lie down and die, then find him.
It is a surprising experience to see animals stand and let arrows fall
about them without fear. An archer has special privileges because he
uses nature's tools.
The whizzing missile is no more than a passing bird to the beast. What
hurt can that bring? The quiet man is only an interesting object on the
landscape, there is no noise to cause alarm. Most animals are ruled by
curiosity till fright takes control. But some are less curious than
others, notably the turkey. There is a story among sportsmen that
describes this in the Indian's speech. "Deer see Injun. Deer say, 'I
see Injun; no, him stump; no, him Injun; no, maybe stump.' Injun shoot.
Turkey see Injun; he say, 'I see Injun.' He go!"
The use of dogs in deer hunting should be restricted to trailing
wounded animals. Here a little mongrel, if properly trained, serves
better than a blooded breed. No dog should be permitted to run deer,
especially if wounded. It is only the dog's nose we need, not his legs.
An ideal canine for an archer would be one having the olfactory organs
of a hound and the reasoning capacity of a college professor. With him
one could trail animals, yet not flush them; perceive the imminence of
game, yet not startle it; run coyotes, wolves, cougars, and bear, yet
never confuse their scent nor abandon the quest of one for that of
another. But as it is, no dog seems capable of doing all things, so we
need specialists. A good bear and lion dog should never taste deer meat
nor follow his tracks.
[Illustration: A REST AT NOON]
[Illustration: A LYNX THAT MET AN ARCHER]
[Illustration: THE CHIEF LOOKING OVER GOOD DEER COUNTRY]
A good coon dog should stick to coons and let rabbits alone. And the
sort of dog an archer needs for deer is one that can point them, yet
will not follow one unless it is wounded.
Every good dog will come to the ringing note of the horn.
And after all, there lies the soul of the sport. The fragrance of the
earth, the deep purple valleys, the wooded mountain slopes, the clean
sweet wind, the mysterious murmur of the tree tops, all call the hunter
forth. When he hears the horn and the baying hound his heart leaps
within him, he grasps his good yew bow, girds his quiver on his hip,
and enters a world of romance and adventure.
X
THE RACCOON, WILDCAT, FOX, COON, CAT, AND WOLF