_Market Hunting._
As quail and grouse were so very plentiful and good warm clothes were
scarce, the second fall we were here my brother and I started to hunt
for the market. This caused us to study the nature of game. I soon found
myself practising the call of Bob White. I would call early in the
morning, when the country was silent, and listen to the echo come back
from the woods, until I could call Bob right up to me from as far as he
could hear the faintest sound of my imitative note. Yes, many a time
during the nesting season have I called five or six male birds up near
where I was sitting, then see them have a scrap. I tell you they are
gamey little fellows. And what fun it was to be back in the field, hid
in a bunch of goldenrod, with my old slouch hat tucked in my pants
pocket, allowing my long hair and freckles to blend with the
surroundings, and watch these plump little beauties come together in
battle, sometimes striking each other so hard they would go fully six
feet in the air and come down facing each other. I have had them so
close I could almost feel the breath of their wings; and possibly three
or four rods away was another one, picking the earth sidewise,
apparently challenging the fourth who was sitting on a stump as if he
were refereeing.
I tell you, life in the country was so sweet to me I would have agreed
to stay here longer than it would take a raft of detectives to find my
great-grandmother’s pewter spoon.
But the grouse was a hard fellow to call. This, however, did not prevent
our success; for as soon as we got one we would examine its crop and
find out just what it was feeding on; if it contained buds, then what
kind they were, etc. And you could rest assured that ninety per cent. of
the grouse in that country were feeding on this same variety of food.
Then as we would walk through the woods with the dogs at our heels and
our faces as nearly on the tops of our heads as possible, the grouse
became very easy. I have shot five out of the tiptop of a cotton-wood
tree where nine out of ten men would never think of looking. But if the
crop contained seeds from the ground, the dogs were put to work where
these seeds grew. As practice makes perfect, we soon became expert shots
and the result was we left a bloody trail behind us.
We would walk miles away in the morning and start in so as to be near
home at night with our heavy loads. Once or twice a week we would box
our game up, and when the road was fit we would wheel it on a
wheel-barrow up to the old stage line.
For at least five miles around, these birds appeared to fear us, and fly
and scream as though Satan himself was after them. Brother and I often
remarked: “Why did they just fly over the fence from the farmer, and ten
minutes later, when we arrived, fly a mile or more from us?”
During the summer months these same birds seemed quite tame; in fact,
they did not seem to be a bit more frightened of us than they were of
the other residents of the country.
However, we soon found that every grain of sport had vanished, and we
were in a financial business. So, speaking from actual experience, I
know that market hunting is not sport; that it is murder in the first
degree, and no principled sportsman will practise it. For one successful
market-hunter will deprive twenty-five real sportsmen of their enjoyable
recreation and outing.
I am pleased to say that we two boys soon outgrew this murderous
practice, and hunted for pleasure only. And as we kept two well-trained
dogs, many pleasant hours’ recreation have we enjoyed with some of the
best gentlemen this earth can produce, returning home with an appetite
for anything and stomachs that would almost digest railroad iron; then
about nine p.m. we would roll in and sleep a hole right down through the
bed.
Next morning, when you awake after such an experience, you will usually
find your eyes are open, and more in focus.