Part 40

Young himself was not particularly elated over this conquest. He knew long ago that the Kadiac bear was no more formidable than the grizzlies we had slain and he only undertook this adventure for show purposes. Moreover though he used his heavy osage orange bow and usual broad-heads, he declares that he believes he can kill the largest bear in Alaska with a fifty pound weapon and proportionately adjusted arrows. Both Young and I are convinced of the necessity of very sharp broad-heads, and trust more to a keen blade and a quick flight than to power.

During his Alaskan travels Art preferred his Osage bows to the yew. They stood being dragged over rocks and falling down mountain sides better than the softer yew wood. His three bows were under five feet six inches in length, short for convenience and each pulled over eighty-five pounds. The country in which he worked was so rocky that it was most disastrous on arrows, and every shot that missed meant a shattered shaft.

Possibly his roughest trip was one taken to picture mountain goats. Here a funny incident occurred. Jack and Art were stalking a herd of these wary creatures with the camera when suddenly around a point of rock the whole band of goats appeared. Art was ahead and had only just time enough to duck down on his hands and knees and hide his face close to the ground. He stayed so still that the entire flock passed close by him almost touching his body, while the camera man did his work from a concealed ledge higher up. Though Young counts it little to his credit, he shot one of these male goats, which was poised on so precipitous a point that it fell over and over down the mountain side and was lost as a trophy and as camp meat. Humiliating as such an episode may be, it serves, however, to add a coup to the archer's count. And there we let the matter rest.

But what is of greater interest is his outwitting a Rocky Mountain Big Horn. This animal is considered the greatest game trophy in America. It is an extremely alert sheep, all eyes and wisdom. If you expose yourself but a second, though you be a mile away from the ram, probably you will be seen. And though the sheep may not move while you look at him, he is gone when you have completed your toilsome climb and peer over the last ledge of rock preparatory to shooting. Ned Frost used to say that when he hunted Big Horns he paid no attention to hearing or smell, but he was so careful about sight, that when he raised his head cautiously over a ridge to observe the sheep, he always lifted a stone and peered underneath it, or picked up a bunch of grass and gazed through it.

Most hunters are content to stalk this game within three or four hundred yards, then aim at it with telescopic sights. It is the last word in good hunting.

Stewart Edward White, the author and big game hunter, has said that the following experience is one of the finest demonstrations of stalking and understanding of animal psychology he knows.

Up near the head of Wood River, Young and his party came on a number of Big Horn Sheep and first devoted several days to film work. Then Young decided to try for a trophy with the bow. After hunting all morning he discovered with his glasses a ram a long way off.

The country was open and had no cover. The ram was resting on a ledge of rock elevated above the level of the valley. Even at a distance of half a mile it was evident to Art that the ram had seen him, so Young studied the sheep and the country carefully before deciding what plan to pursue.

From the lay of the land it was plain that no concealment was possible and no detour or ambush could be employed. The glasses showed that the ram was a fairly old specimen and had a very sophisticated look. In fact, to Art he looked conceited and had an expression that said: "There is a man, but I am a pretty wise old sheep; I know all about men; that fellow hasn't seen me yet and when he does, there is plenty of open country back of me; my best plan is to lie still and let this tenderfoot pass." So he went on ruminating and blinking at the sun.

Taking this mental attitude into consideration, Young decided that the best method of outwitting this particular sheep was to take him at his own valuation and proceed as a tenderfoot down the valley. So he walked unconcernedly along at an oblique angle to the sheep and never once taking a direct look at him. He went gaily along whistling, kicking pebbles and swinging his bow. When he had reached a distance of two or three hundred yards the old sheep lifted up his head to see what was going on. Young paid no attention to him, though he observed him out of the corner of his eyes. So the wise old boy settled back content with his diagnosis.

Art walked along as innocently as ever. When he was a hundred and fifty yards off, the ram raised his head again and took a longer observation. He seemed to be changing his mind. Young said to himself, "He will take one more look, then he will go. Now is the time to act." So nocking an arrow on the string he ran at full speed directly at the sheep, and when half way he saw the tip of his horns rise above the ledge and knew it was time to stop. He came to his shooting pose and waited, the arrow half drawn. Sure enough! Out walked the old fellow to the very edge of the parapet and gazed over. Off flew the arrow and in the twilight it was lost to vision, but he heard it strike and saw the ram wheel in flight. As it disappeared over the ridge Art followed at a run; reaching the top he peered cautiously about and saw the sheep at no great distance standing still with its legs spread wide apart. He knew by the posture that it was done for. So he went back to the valley and because of the distance from camp and the oncoming darkness he made a fire and "Siwashed it" or camped out in the open all night without blankets. In the morning he went after his trophy and found it near the spot last seen. It was a fine specimen. The arrow had pierced it from front to rear completely through and was lost; a center shot at eighty yards; a most remarkable bit of archery and hunting stratagem. This head now decorates the dining room of the Young home in San Francisco. Unfortunately the moose antlers were cached near a river in Alaska and an unprecedented flood carried them out to sea.

While speaking of Alaskan rivers there recurs to my mind a most remarkable incident related by Young. In one picture required for their film it was necessary to show a canoe in the course of construction, the subsequent use of this vessel and an upset in the turbulent waters of the river. To represent his bow in its canvas case, and still to spare that weapon a wetting, Young went down the river bank to pick out a stick about the same size to put in his bow case. Taking the first piece that came to hand he started to place it in the case, when struck by its smoothness he looked at it and found he had a weatherbeaten old Indian bow in his hand. It seemed like a sign, a good omen,--for we playfully indulge in omens in these romantic adventures with the bow.

Studying this implement later I found it apparently to be a birch Urock bow, some five feet long, having nocks and a place for the usual perpendicular piece of wood bound on at the handle to check the string. It would have pulled about sixty pounds, good enough for caribou hunting.

And so in brief are the adventures of Art Young in Alaska.

But who can speak of the adventures in the heart of our archer? Here is no common hunter, no insensate slayer of animals. Here we have the poet afoot,--the archaic adventurer in modern game fields; the champion of fair play and clean sport; all that is strong and manly.

I take off my hat to Arthur Young.

A CHAPTER OF ENCOURAGEMENT

STEWART EDWARD WHITE

No one can read Dr. Pope's book without an appreciation of the romance and charm of the long bow and the broad-head arrow. And no one can doubt that the little group of which he writes has proved that the thing can be done. Its members have brought to bag quantities of small game, unnumbered deer, mountain goat, big horn sheep, moose, caribou, thirteen black bears, six grizzlies, and one monster Kadiak bear. That point it proved beyond doubt. But, each will ask; how about it for me? These men are experts. It all looks very fascinating; but what chance have I?

That, I believe, is the first reaction of the average man after he has savored the real literary charm of this book and begins to consider the practical side of the question. It was my own reaction. Fortunately, I live within commuting distance of Dr. Pope, so I have been able to resolve my doubts--slowly. My purpose is here to summarize what I found out.

In the first place, the utter beginner has in his hands a weapon that is adequate and humane. A bad rifle shot or a bad shotgun shot can and does "slobber" his game by hitting it in the wrong places or with the outer fringe of his pattern. But if an arrow can be landed anywhere in the body it is certain and prompt death. This is not only true of the chest cavity, but of the belly; and every rifleman knows that a bullet in the latter is ineffective and cruel, and a beast so wounded is capable of long distances before it dies. The arrow's deadliness depends not on its shocking power, which of course is low, but upon internal hemorrhage and the very peculiar fact that the admission of air in quantity into any part of the body cavity collapses the lungs. Furthermore, again unlike the bullet, the broad arrow seems to be as effective at the limit of its longest flight as at the nearer ranges. So the amateur bowman, suitably armed, may lay this much of comfort to his soul: if by the grace of Robin Hood and the little capricious gods of luck he does manage to stray a shaft into a beast, it is going to do the trick for him. And of course if he keeps on shooting arrows in the general direction of game, the doctrine of chances will land him sooner or later!

In the meantime--and here is the second point--he is going to have an enormous amount of enjoyment from his "close misses." With firearms a miss is a miss, and catastrophic. You have failed, and that is all there is to it; and you have no earthly means of knowing whether your miss was by the scant quarter inch that fairly ruffled the beast's crest, or by the disgraceful yards of buck ague or the jerking forefinger or the blinking dodging eye. But the beautiful clean flight of the arrow can be followed. And when it passes between the neck and the bend of wing of wild goose; or it buries its head in the damp earth only just below the body line of the unstartled deer, the bowman experiences quite as keen a thrill of satisfaction as follows a good center with gun or rifle,--even though the game is as scathless as though he had missed it by miles. In this type of hunting a miss is emphatically not as good as a mile! And the chances are he can try again, and yet again, provided nothing else has occurred to affright his quarry. To most animals the flight of an arrow is little more than the winging past of some strange swift bird.

Thus the joy is not primarily in the size of the bag, nor even in the certainty of the bag, but in the woodcraft and the outguessing, and the world of little things one must notice to get near enough for his shot, and the birds and the breezes and the small matters along the way; which is as it should be: and the satisfaction is not wholly centered in merely a shot well placed and a trophy quickly come by. Indeed, the latter is become almost an incidental; a very welcome and inspiriting incidental; a wonderful culmination; but a culmination that is necessary only occasionally as a guerdon of emprise rather than an invariably indispensability, lacking which the whole expedition must be classed as a failure.

At first the seasoned marksman will doubt this. I can only recommend a fair trial. One of the most successful experiences of my sporting life was one of these "close misses." A very noble buck, broadside on, was trotting head up across my front and down a mountain slope nearly a hundred and fifty yards away,--out of reasonable range as archers count distances. I made my calculations as well as I could and loosed a shaft, more in honor of his wide branching antlers than in any sure hope. While the arrow was in the air the deer stopped short and looked at me. The shaft swept down its long curve and shattered its point against a rock at just the right height and about six feet in front of the beast. If he had continued his trot, it would have pierced his heart. Nothing was the worse for that adventure except the broad-head, which was gladly offered to the kindly gods who had so gratifyingly watched for me its straight true flight. And I had just as much satisfaction from the episode as though I had actually slain the deer,--and had had to cut it up and carry it into camp. This would not have been true with a rifle. At any range of the bullet's effectiveness I should have expected of myself a hit, and a miss would have hugely disappointed me with myself and ruined temporarily my otherwise sweet disposition.

But even acknowledging all this, the fact indubitably remains that one must occasionally get results, one must occasionally expect to get results, in order to retain interest. Even though one goes forth boldly to slay the bounding roebuck and brings back but the lowly jackrabbit, he must once in a blue moon be assured of the jackrabbit. And he must get the jackrabbit, not merely through the personal interposition of the little gods who preside at roulette tables, but because his bow arm held true and his release sweet and the shaft true sped.

All this is perfectly possible. Any man can within a reasonable time become a reasonably good shot if he has the persistence to practice, and the patience to live through the first discouragements, and the ability to get some fun along the way. The game in its essentials seems to me a good deal like golf. It has a definite technique of a number of definite elements which must coordinate. When that technique is working smoothly results are certain. Like golf a man knows just what he is to do; only he cannot make himself do it! As the idea gets grooved in his brain, the swing--or the release and the hold,--become more and more automatic. But always there will be "on" days when he will shoot a par: and "off" days when both ball and shaft fly on the wings of contrariness.

Of all the qualities above mentioned, I think for the beginner the most important is to cherish confident hope through the early discouragements. For a long time there seems to be no improvement whatever. And there is not improvement as far as score-results go. But the man who studies to perfect the elements of his technique, and is not merely shooting arrows promiscuously, is actually improving for all that. He must strive to remember that not only is each and every point important in itself, but that all must coordinate, must be working well together. No matter how crisp the release, it avails not an the bow arm falter or the back muscles relax. Again like golf, one day one thing will be working well, and another day another; but it is only when they are all working well that the ball screams down the fairway or the arrow consistently finds its mark. Thus the beginner, practise as thoughtfully as he may, will for a time, perhaps a month or so, find little or no encouragement in the accuracy of his shaft's flight. This is the period when most men, who have started out enthusiastically enough, give up in disgust. Then all at once the persistent ones will begin to pick up. It is a good deal like dropping stones in a pool. One can drop in a great many stones without altering the surface of the water; but there comes a time when the addition of a single pebble shows results.

In his chapter on Shooting the Bow, Dr. Pope has most adequately outlined the technique. If the beginner will do what the doctor there tells him to do, he will shoot correctly. Nevertheless he will find it necessary to find out for himself just how he is going to do these things. It is largely a matter of getting the proper mental picture, and finding out how one feels when he is doing the right thing. Each probably gets an entirely individual mental image. Nevertheless a few hints from the beginner's standpoint may come gracefully from one who only yesterday was a beginner, and who today has struggled but little beyond the first marker post of progress.