Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-05-02
ADIRONDACK NIMRODS.
Funny Yarns About Queer Ex-
 periences in the Woods.
How Old Harry Mullen Killed a Fox by Ac- cddent-A Deer with a Charmed Life An Easy Way of Procuring Feath-
 ers-Sim Martins Luck.

cadent-A Deer with Q Charmed Life
 An Easy Way of Procuring Feath-
 ers-Sim Martins Luck.
 There is nothing like an old guides' e1 perlence meeting to pass away an autumn evening in an Adirondack hunting-camp, for all the old woodsmen are full of inter- esting tales and they know how to tell
 them. Sitting before a blazing fire in log cabin near Jayvllle, N. Y., a short time ago, ln company with four old-timers, a New
 York World correspondent listened to stories of some remarkable shots at game. The occasion for telling a half-dozen queer incidents happening in the woods was the
 remark made by Harry Mullin, veteran guide, as he dressed rabbit for supper, that he had-never shot one of the innocent | things in his life without breaking his neck | and all four of his legs, no matter where he l hit him.
 ''It's durned queer thing" said Harry, s'and can't explain it. Here's this rabbit | that shot to-day, he's bored right through the body with rifle ball and he wasn't | touched anywhere else, but his legs are broken, every one of them. Now, there's only just one way that can explain this | thing. l reckon the critters run so fast
 that when rife ball stops them kinder
 suddenly it snaps their legs off. Anyway,
 you shoot rabbit on the run and you won't l
 him up, nine times out of ten. The queer-
 est shot ever made, though, was about 1 three years ago, down near Bonaparte lake. A party Of us were out rabbit hunting and
 had strayed off in the brush by myself.
 Rabbits were pretty thick around there
 and as I was standing on a little knoll
 looking around I saw one coming straight l towards me. I pulled on him and brought | him down. As soon as I fired saw some
 thing red, like fox's tail, flip up in the | brush as much as ten rods beyond the rab-
 bit, and slipped in another cartridge quick,
 to give the fox a shot, but he didn't show
 up. Well, when 1 went to pick up the rab-
 bit had shot I went 0 little further to see
 about the foX and what do you suppose l
 founda Instead of the fox's tracks found
 the fox himself, deader than a smelt, with a
 bullet-hole in his neck. He happened to be
 in range of the bullet that killed the rabbit
 and it knocked him over. 1 made up my | mind that the fox was chasing the rabbit
 when killed him by accident Any way, it
 was the queerest shot ever made"
 "That was 8 queer shot," sa,d Will Sul.
 livan, after listening to Harry's story, {" but
 I would think it a great deal queerer if
 had not seen two or three queer shots up in
 these woods myself. It's just queer how a
 gun will act in a mans hands sometimes
 You may have a good chance to kill some
 thing, and when you pull up your gun to do
 it you think it's just like letting drive at the
 side of a barn, but you don't hit any thing
 just the same. 1 remember two years ago
 last August l was over on Number Four
 with fellow from New York and we went
 out one night to float for deer. For city
 chap that man was the best shot ever saw.
 The bow of tho boat was about twenty feet , from a fine large buck when that New Y ork } fellow discovered the game. He let off both
 barrels of his gun mighty quick, and as the buck stood broadside to him no one would 7 have thought of such thing as his miss , ing. Well, when he fired that buck bounded out of the water and was off into the woods
 in no time. You never saw a man more , asronished in your life than that fellow 7 from the city was just then. I reckon that
 deer has charmed life and that no one can kill him.
 "But speaking about killing a fox and @ ] rabbit at the same time reminds me of a ; shot I made about four years ago while 3 watching a runway over on Beaver river. A party of us were out running deer, and ) was posted on spruce ridge about mile + from the stream. Pretty soon big deer t came tearing down over the ridge drew ] on him and pulled the trigger, but he kept g right ahead and got out of sight before J could try it again. A few seconds after g fired at the deer was looking in the direc- t tion 1 had shot, when l saw something fall
 from the top of a small spruce tree that 1 stood in range, down on the hill side. t went to see what it was, and found that . while had missed the buck had accident l. ally brought down the biggest hedgehog + had ever laid eyes on."
 L s1That story about the fellow shooting at r the buck up on Number Four is a good one,
 but it don't como up to tho experience that
 had few years ago." remarked Andrew
 McKenna, who had quietly listened to the l C,,l, [ hoHyo cyC1
 l to get back g. little to the time when wfic r pigeons were thick up this way to match it Il but I can beat that or any other queer sho n ever made in this part of the country. They l, were so thick in many places, and partlcu t- larly in my buckwheat patch, that you coule h knock them down with q club, and have n heard of lots of them being killed in tha y way. One day fixed up a brush cover il 5, a corner of the fence about four rods iron a a big tree full of the birds so that couk g. get a shot at the pigeons. They seemed t. 1T sit one on top of another, and some Of tn e limbs broke under their weight. To look @ n the tree it appeared to be one solid blu
 bunch of pigeons. had Q double-barre B. shotgun heavily loaded with No. 6 shot e and I could not think of killing less tha, g. fifty birds in two shots at that tree. Well a I fired both barrels and did not bring dow I single pigeon, and I do not know that " even wounded one But talk about feathers y- The ground under the beech tree was GOV Ie cred almost an inch deep. l never saw an, ,r thing to equal Il"
 y Then old "Sim'' Martin, who had bee1 t lying back on a bunch of hemlock bough IT calmly smoking his pipe, spoke up.
 .s t'Them's purty queer stories you've bee
 tellin'," said old Sim, "but Eve heerd jus Ill sich before. Over on Upper Lake, on ,e time, a feller told me he killed two deer g 30 one shot when he was out floating on n- night, an the deer was standin' two rod ss apart at that. He had a rife that was I'd powerful shooter, an reckon he wasn i'd lying about it. You all know Bill Keacf " who used to guide up on Beaver river Bl D. killed an old boar and a cub at one shot, an oe ketched cub number two and took it hom
 with him. But jest to see how luck runs, n. want to tell you about my shooting at 1ioc ly of pigeons over in Montague the time the to were so thick there years ago. had an ol e. fint-lock then that used to belong to m .n grandfather, but 1t was great shoote a Well, a big flock of pigeons came and 'hgh an ed in a tree close by the house one day, an
 e,ot down the old musket to give lem