by Jay Cassell
The Best Hunting Stories Ever Told
Jay Cassell
Thomas McIntyre
Copyright © 2010 by Jay Cassell
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10018.
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Illustrations © John Rice: Pages 11; 23; 43; 70; 115; 130; 144; 158; 168; 176; 188; 194; 202; 229; 234; 240; 249; 252; 255; 270; 281; 313; 320; 336; 341; 350; 356; 362; 476; 495; 498; 513; 522; 526; 532; 561 Photo courtesy of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Har vard College Library: Page 2
All stories are reprinted by permission of the author unless otherwise indicated.
The authors and texts included in this book represent more than a century of literature. The integrity of their individual styles, including spelling, punctuation, and grammar, has been respected. The stories reflect the attitudes of their times, and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
This book is a condensation of the previously published volume The Gigantic Book of Hunting Stories.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
9781616080570
Printed in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to my wife of 28 years, Lorraine, who has put up with my many days away from home, hunting various game animals around the globe; and to my son, James, and daughter, Katherine, who have somehow come to understand why their Dad absolutely has to have a new rifle, or binoculars, or knife, because his upcoming hunt can’t possibly succeed without it.
—Jay Cassell, Katonah, New York, June 9, 2010.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction
PART I - Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: America’s Greatest Hunter/Conservationist
A Man-Killing Bear
Old Ephraim
The Game of the High Peaks: The White Goat
The Ranchman’s Rifle on Crag and Prairie
The Wapiti, or Round-Horned Elk
Elephant Hunting on Mount Kenia
PART II - The Olden Days
Phineas Finn
The Duke’s Children—Killancodlem
Red Letter Days in British Columbia
The Hunt for the Man-Eaters of Tsavo
Tige’s Lion
De Shootinest Gent’man
Thinking Like a Mountain
PART III - Big Game
Luck of the Draw
A Day Out
Wolf Hunters
Night of the Brown Bear
Two Bulls
In the Heat of the Rut
PART IV - Small Game
Going After the Varying Hare in Vermont’s Snow Woods
Squirrel Hunting: The Making of Young Hunters
Daybreak
New Wilderness
The Rabbit Runners
PART V - Upland Birds
The Sundown Covey
Bobwhites in the Shinnery
Showing the Way
Quail in the Thorned Land
In Fields Near Home
Intelligence
Autumn Quarter
First Grouse
Spiller Country
Targeting the Thunder-Maker
No Woodcock—but Nothing to Grouse About, Either
Convert
Green Eyes
What’s Worth Saving
PART VI - Waterfowl
The Old Brown Mackinaw
“Pothole Guys, Friz Out”
The Wings of Dawn
Hunting from an Unusual Blind
PART VII - Turkey Hunting
That Twenty-Five-Pound Gobbler
The Central Character
The Turkey Cure
A Successful Fall Hunt
Turkey Hunters
PART VIII - Deer Hunting
Trail’s End
Three Men and a Buck
The First Snow of Autumn
Hunting with Lady Luck
A Flintlock in the Rain
Mobley Pond
As Near to Perfect
The Third Deer
The Rack
On Stand
PART IX - Africa and Asia
Karamojo
The Thak Man-Eater
Second-Best Buffalo
Among the San
Vengeance
The Classic Fall-on-Your-Arse Double
Everything Your Heart Desires
Shadows in the Bush (Part I)
Shadows in the Bush (Part II)
The Wire
PART X - Reflections on Our Sport
To Hunt: The Question of Killing
The Wealth of Age
A Hunting Memory
River Notes: Three Days of the Savage Life
Forty Crook Branch
Acolytes
A Sudden Silence
Magic
Struggle and Chance: Why We Do It
Choices
The Measure of a Hunter
Integrity
Mercy on Beeson’s Partridge
Three Days to Thanksgiving
Why
Hunter’s Moon
Log Fires
A Christmas Wish
Just a Dog
The Road to Tinkhamtown
The Heart of the Game
Lost
Finding Your Way in the Woods
Acknowledgments
Introduction
THOMAS MCINTYRE
“Why should I not be serious? I am speaking of hunting.”
—General Zaroff, The Most Dangerous Game, Richard Connell
This will be a brief introduction because I don’t want to delay you from making your way into the storytelling—storytelling being, of course, the earliest form of art and the one emerging directly from the hunt. The tales in this exceptional compendium reflect the wide diversity of the hunting experience. Yet while each is unique, they all follow a similar set of tracks, deriving from the identical coil of racing heart and illuminating soul, the spark of which is traced to the first of our ancient hunting fathers. Not only the original storyteller, this hunter was also, perforce, the original reader—of spoor, light, wind, and more. He was the earth’s initial interpreter of abstract signs, precursors to the black letters and words marked, like hoof- and pawprints, across the pages you now hold in your hands. So the reading of this book is also, like the hunt, being on the trail, giving chase to an object of pursuit.
It would seem right, then, to wish the reader “good hunting.” The old cacciatori of Italy ’s Piedmont, though, accounted it the very worst of luck to express such a sentiment. Instead they made another petition, to camouflage their true intentions: In bocca al lupo, “Fall into the jaws of the wolf!” May you, as well, and with great pleasure.
PART I
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt: America’s Greatest Hunter/Conservationist
JIM CASADA
Throughout his years, Theodore Roosevelt strove to live what he called “the strenu
ous life.” Following that credo, he was, at various times in his career, a soldier, diplomat, politician, author, reformer, and visionar y—a true Renaissance man. Yet if one sought for bright, shining threads that ran through the fabric of his entire life, none would stand out more vividly than his love of hunting and his staunch commitment to conservation. The more one learns of his activities in these areas, the greater becomes one’s appreciation of his zest for life and incredible accomplishments.
Born on October 27, 1858, in New York City, young Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., enjoyed many of the privileges associated with being the child of affluent parents, but from a tender age he also had firsthand acquaintance with adversity. A sickly, asthmatic lad, he faced health problems throughout his adolescent years. At an early age though, TR demonstrated the dogged perseverance that would characterize him as a hunter and in so many other arenas, saying simply: “I’ ll make my body.” Through boxing, wrestling, horseback riding, climbing, rowing, swimming, hiking, camping, and most of all, hunting, he did just that.
His father, although the owner of some lovely guns (such as a set of W. W. Greener percussion pistols and a Lefaucheux pinfire 12-gauge shotgun), had little interest in the outdoors. Instead, young Theodore found inspiration in the novels of Mayne Reid, books on exploration by the likes of Dr. David Livingstone, and in the accounts of African hunting by Roualeyn Gordon-Cumming and Sir Samuel Baker. His mentor for outdoor pursuits, at least at the outset, was his uncle, Robert Barnwell Roosevelt. A respected authority on fishing and ichthyology, he also wrote two hunting-related books, Game Birds of the Coasts and Florida and the Game Water Birds. As a long-time member of the New York Fish and Game Commission and some one who was quite active in politics, Uncle Robert probably had much more to do in shaping TR’s philosophical outlook than did his father.
Another influential figure in shaping his perspectives and nurturing the budding outdoorsman was a Maine guide, outfitter, and lumberman, Bill Sewall. Even as Roosevelt was proving himself, as a collegian, an individual of great intellect possessing an exceptional work ethic (he earned a Phi Beta Kappa key at Har vard), he spent summers in the Maine wilderness. The first of these adventures came in 1878, following his father’s death late in the previous year. Its original intent was, likely, simple escape from the sorrow that threatened to consume the young man, but TR’s linkage with Sewall proved to be a real watershed in his life.
Sewall initially saw him as “a thin, pale youngster with bad eyes and a weak heart,” and he fully expected three weeks of nursemaiding lay before him. Furthermore, by his own admission Roosevelt shot so poorly that he was moved to comment “I am disgusted with myself.” Yet the tenacity and sheer determination to succeed, no matter what the odds, which would become hallmarks of his career, served him well, and he insisted on arduous dawn-to-dusk activity every day. His confidence blossomed, as did his hardiness, and two subsequent Maine outings, both in 1879, added immensely to his education in the school of the outdoors.
Meanwhile, TR completed his undergraduate studies. With graduation a time for momentous decisions was at hand. Before considering these—graduate study, a career path, possibly marriage, and other matters—Roosevelt took an extended hunting trip in company with his brother, Elliott. This type of escape to the wilderness and engagement in what he described as “manly pursuits” would become a prominent feature of his entire life. On this occasion and many subsequent ones, when faced by pressures in his personal or political life, TR would find that the solitude of the wild world, often shared with a close companion, was the ideal way to clear his mind and strengthen his resolve when critical decisions lay before him. During this particular trip, the brothers hunted upland birds and small game. TR treated himself to a new shotgun, and he got his first taste of the West, a region that would exert magnetic influence on him the rest of his life.
In his heart of hearts, he found that nothing held as much appeal for him as sport. Indeed, when writing of an 1883 trip on the Little Missouri River, he commented: “ I am fond of politics, but fonder still of a little big-game hunting.” This was quite introspective as well as being a statement of simple reality. As Paul Cutright would note in the preface to his book, Theodore Roosevelt: The Naturalist (1956), “Roosevelt began his life as a naturalist, and he ended it as a naturalist. Throughout a half century of strenuous activity his interest in wildlife, though subject to ebb and flow, was never abandoned at any time.”
In the fall of 1883, bothered by a return of the asthma that had periodically plagued him throughout his youth and tired of the grind of politics (he had, after a brief stint as a graduate student at Columbia University, been elected to the State Assembly in New York), TR went on a hunting trip in the Dakota Badlands. He shot a buffalo and encountered various misadventures including miserable weather, proving along the way that he almost welcomed obstacles as a challenge. As TR suggested to his guide on the trip, Joe Ferris, “It ’s dogged as does it.” Ferris for his part, while initially harboring serious doubts about the hardihood of his client, in the end evaluated him as “a plumb good sort.”
Roosevelt’s exposure to the Badlands made a deep impression, and for the next decade he would find himself torn between a life lived close to nature in that rugged area and one devoted to national affairs back East. Before boarding a train to return home, he set in motion plans to buy a ranch, Chimney Butte, in the Badlands. He would be back in the Badlands less than a year later, and in the intervening months his life and outlook changed dramatically. His wife and mother died within hours of one another on February 14, 1884, the former succumbing to kidney disease in the aftermath of childbirth while his mother, Mittie, fell victim to typhoid fever. His diary for the day shows a black X followed by a single sentence: “ The light has gone out of my life.”
It was in the Badlands that TR found a refuge and renewed purpose in life. He persuaded his old Maine guide and mentor, Bill Sewell, to join him as ranch manager, and in short order was, by his own calculations, “well hardened.” He discovered the surcease of solitude first in daily outings then in a longer trip by himself, and soon Roosevelt was planning a more ambitious adventure in Wyoming. Until his great African safari late in life, this would be TR’s longest hunt. It lasted seven weeks and he and members of his party took six elk, seven deer, three grizzlies, and 109 head of various “small game,” with Roosevelt meticulously recording the daily bag in his diary. This trip to the Bighorns also soothed his troubled soul, and with its conclusion he was once more ready to look back to the East, the responsibilities of public service that were a family tradition, and his destiny. Henceforth, while his mind and most of his time belonged to public affairs in the East, the West would have a firm hold on his heart.
Out of his experiences would come two of his most enduring books, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, while the best-known of all his outdoor books, The Wilderness Hunter, drew in part on these years. He left this period of his life determined to preserve the West that had firmly seized a corner of his soul. It is a measure of both his determination and ability that Roosevelt would, to a greater degree than any other American, be responsible for protecting this western wonderland.
After a devastating winter in the Badlands in 1886-87, one that saw TR lose most of his cattle, he reluctantly gave up the ranching life. Meanwhile, he married again, and ever a busy, boisterous individual, late in December, 1887, he hosted a dinner that led directly to the founding of the Boone and Crockett Club. He wrote its constitution, with the concept of fair chase being at the heart of its philosophy, and over the years Roosevelt would both edit and contribute to a number of the organization’s publications.
During the late 1880s and early 1890s he watched his boys grow (all would eventually become keen sportsmen) and managed to take at least one extended hunt every year. He made outings to British Columbia, the Rockies, his old haunts in the Badlands, and the Yellowstone River region. In them he was living out the plea he posited,
in The Wilderness Hunter, “for manliness and simplicity and delight in a vigorous outdoor life.”
From the time he became the reformist police commissioner of New York City in 1895, on through his exploits with the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War, election as governor of New York, and then as William McKinley ’s successful vice presidential running mate, TR experienced the busiest time of an incredibly busy life. McKinley’s death at the hands of an anarchist put him at the head of the nation, but even so, he would find a surprising amount of time to hunt.
His first hunt as president took him to Mississippi, where to his lasting chagrin he found that his guide, a highly experienced bear hunter named Holt Collier, had captured a bear and had it bound in ropes awaiting a presidential shot. TR bluntly refused to have in part in such a charade, and from this the “Teddy” bear fad was born. Disgusted with the whole affair, which would be a source of embarrassment for the remainder of his life (and a major factor in the widespread use of the nickname he detested), Roosevelt took the ethically appropriate path.
Other aspects of his two terms as president (he was elected in his own right after completing McKinley’s term) associated with sport and conservation were far more satisfying. He traveled to Yosemite with the great naturalist, John Muir, and made a similar trip to Yellowstone with another noted conservationist/writer, John Burroughs. More significant, however, were his concrete accomplishments in promoting conservation. He founded the Forest Service and persuaded Gifford Pinchot to serve as its first director. Both men fully understood that their mission involved conserving, with practical use by hunters and others, not mindless preservation with no provision whatsoever for sensible utilization of natural resources. TR also signed bills creating five new national parks, established game reserves and the National Bison Range, and in general instilled in the American populace awareness of the importance of protecting wildlife and habitat. Unquestionably his work as a conservationist looms large among his many legacies to posterity.
