The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-11-28

| stops them kinder suddenly it snaps their legs on. Any way you shoot q rabbit on the run, and you won't find a whole leg on his body when you pick him up. nine times out of ten. The | aueerest shot ever made, though was about three years ago. up neal Bear Valley Lake. A party of us went out rabbit hunting. and l had strayed on In the brush by myself. Rabbits were pretty thick around there, and as l was standing on q little knoll look ing around I saw one coming straight toward me. I pulled on him and brought him down. AS soon as fired l saw something red, like a fox's tall, flip up in the brush as much as ten rods beyond the rabbit, and slipped in another cartridge quick to give the fox q shot, but he didn't show up. Well, when I went to pick up the rab- bit had shot. went a little further to See about the fox. and what do you suppose I found? Instead of the fox's tracks. I found the fox himself, deader than a smeit, with bullet hole in his neck. He happened to be in range of the bullet that killed the rabbit, and 1t knocked him over. I made up my mind that the fox was chasing the rab- bit when I killed him by accident"
 That was queer shot," said John Mitchell. after listening to Hanks sto- ry. but I would think 1t a great deal queerer if had not seen two or three queer shots up in these woods myself. It's queer how gun will act in a mans hands sometimes. You have a good chance to kill something, and when you pull up your gun to do 1t you think it's just like letting drive at the side of a barn, but you don't hit any thing just the same. I remember two years ago last August was over at Hemet Lake. In Strawberry Valley, in the San Jacinto range, with a fellow from Frisco. and we went out one night to float for deer. For city chap that man was the best shot l ever saw. The bow of the boat was about twenty feet from a fine, large buck when that Frisco fellow discovered the game. He let off both barrels of his gun mighty quick, and as the buck stood broad side to him, no one would have thought of such a thing as his missing. Well. when he fired that buck bounded out of the water and was off in the woods in no time. You never saw a man more astonished in your life than that fel- low from the city was just then. l reckon that deer has charmed life, and that no one can kill him.
 But speaking about killing a rabbit and a fox at the same time reminds me of shot made about four years ago while watching a runaway over on Santa Anna river. A party of us was out hunting deer, and I was posted on spruce ridge. I drew on him and pulled the trigger. but he kept right ahead and got out of sight before l could try it again. A few seconds af- ter I fired at the deer I was looking in the direction I had shot, when I saw something fall from the top of a small spruce tree that stood in range down on the side of -the hill. I went to see what 1t was. and found that while l had missed the buck, had accidental ly brought down the biggest hedgehog I had ever laid eyes on."
 That story about the fellow shoot ing at the buck on Hemet Lake is good one. but it don't come up to the experience had a few years ago. re- marked Bill McDougol. T have got to get back a little to the time when pigeons were thick up this way to match 1t, but can beat that or any other queer shot ever made in this part of the country. They were so thick in many places, and particularly in my buckwheat patch, that you could knock them down with a club, and I have heard of lots of them being killed in that way. One day I fixed up brush cover in the corner of the fence, about four rods from g. big tree full of the birds, so I could get shot at the pigeons. They seemed to sit one on top of another, and some of the limbs broke under their weight. To look at the tree, it seemed to be one solid bunch of blue pigeons. I had double-barrel shotgun, heavily loaded with No. 6 shot, and I could not think of killing less than fifty birds in two shots at that tree. Well, fired both barrels, and did not bring down single pigeon, and I do not know that I even wounded one. But talk about feathers; the ground under the beech tree was covered almost an inch deep. I never saw anything to equal it."
 Then old Mike Plunket who had been lying back on a bunch of hem lock boughs calmly smoking his pipe, spoke up:
 "Them's purity queer stories you've been telling" said old Mike, "but I've heerd jist sich before. Over on Elsi- nore Lake. one time, a feller told me he killed two deer at one shot, when he was out floating one night, an the deer was standin' two rods apart at tEat. He had rifle that was a powerful shooter, an I reckon he wasn't lying about it. You all know Bill Samson who used to track up on Beaver river. Bill killed an old bear and cup at one shot, and he ketched cub No. 2 and took it home with him. But just to see how luck runs want to tell you abou, my shooting at flock of pigeons over in Bear Valley at the time they were so thick three years ago. I had an old fiintlock then that used to belong 10 my grandfather, but 1t was great shoot CT. We'll, a big flock of pigeons came and lighted in a tree close by the house one day., and got down the old musket to give 'um a shot. The old thing was loaded to kill. and Wasn't