The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1899-08-23
"RoBIN's RoosT,"

JOHNSON CITY, TENN, July ., los5
To the Sportsmen:
DEAR PRINCES OF PLEASURE: You are
men after my own heart. Next to my
wife and children, | love my horses and
dogs; next to the fiddle and the bow,
prize my guns and my fishing rods; and
above all associations except those of
home, prefer your society. There is
no music like the music of the chase;
there is no excitement equal to it.
When the wild deer springs from shady
copse or tangled covert and the eager
pack open in full cry, you take the
buck ager" and tremble on the stand
in the gap of the mountains. You hear
the music rise and fall and fall and rise
from hollow to hill and from hill to
hollow, like the Ginning of distant
bells; louder and louder it rises. nearer
and nearer it comes; you turn pale and
quiver from head to foot; your pulse
rises to a hundred and twenty a minute;
you hear the quick rustling of leaves a
hundreds yards away; you catch a
glimpse of something bounding by you
like chicken with its head cut off; your
arms take the palsy, and you pull the
trigger and shoot hole in the sky. The
believing hounds go sweeping by you
like a whirlwiDd; you wipe the beads of
sweat from your brow, and lie down
under the shade trees to "cuss" and
cool. Then you hear the crack of a
Winchester half a mile down the hol-
low; the music suddenly bushes; you
rise and run; you hear the exultant yell
of your companion, and there is veni-
son in camp for supper, and smoking
after supper, and lies, and explana-
tions, and excuses; and then there is
sleep full of dreams and nightmares
and visions of vanishing deer all night
long.
But the deer hunt is rapidly becom-
ing a thing of the past in almost every
section of America. We have been no
more merciful to the gamest game of
the forest than to the poor Indian; they
have gone together to the happy hunt
ing ground" 1t is pity that our law
makers have SO completely and uni
versally neglected to give us wholesome
laws for the protection of our game. In
their eagerness to protect the cities
and towns, they have forgotten the
country, both man and beast; and they
still continue to forget. Our great
forests are disappearing with the In
dian and the deer. If our statesmen
would give more attention to the pro-
lection of timber and game, and less to
the upbuilding of privileged classes and
the cultivation of trusts, our people
would have more health, wealth and
happiness.
the forest and field which still lives in
spite of the politicians, the world, the
flesh and the devil; and he is the ire
pressible and unextinguishabl fox,
who still continues to dress in his red
uniform, and who still delights to play
drum major for our yelping hounds and
for us. Did you never rise from your
beds at the break of day, when the frost
was on the pumpkin and the air was
crisp and cool; and did you never mount
your prancing horse and sound your
hunters horn and listen to your howl
ing and whining hounds as they gath
cred around you, anxious to join in the
glorious jubilee; and did you never hear
the sound of other horns in the distance,
summoning you to the meeting place
down at the end of the lane by the
skirting woods? OF course you have,
and you galloped away with joy; and
just when the morning was hanging
her banners of purple and gold on the
sky, and the forest was throbbing a
tribute of welcome to her; just as the
glad world was waking with laughter
and song, old Drum" and Fife"
opened on the point of the hill just
above you, "Bugle" gave few quick
and shrill yelps, and the bounds hud-
died and struck the trail. Old from
bone" led off with solo. Queen"
chimed in with her E fiat cornet, old
"Basso" Numbered an accompanying
blast, and all the band began to play.
Beauty" laughed with her piccolo;
sport" and "Speck" blew the tenor
horns; Blue" and BLACK" and Tan
played the alto; and there were flutes,
and tiddles, and flageolets, and tri-
angles, and tambourines, and tinkling
cymbals galore. There were fiuttering
hearts and quivering leaves, and the
hills fairly shook with the chorus.
The willy fox circled and swung round
the ridges, and the music circled and
swung close at his heels. Joy was I'M
confined, and the flying melody filed
the air like the incense of wild flowers.
The echo caught up the strain and
passed it round from cliff to cliff, until
the beams of the rising sun danced in
the tree tops and swung corners with
the shadows below. At ten o'clock
there was fox skin hanging in your
barn, you were eating breakfast at
home, and your tired hounds were pant
ing in the kennel.
Whether it be hunting the deer, or
chasing the fox, or shooting out the
eye of the squirrel on the highest limb
of the tallest tree. or counting the
coveys in the fields, or flirting with the
fish in the streams, the life of the sport
man is glorious. Nature reveals her
charms to him. and he learns to love
her more and more for her kindness
and her beauty. His memory is not an
old, dingy garnet full of cobwebs; it is
a continent eter fresh and green with
landscapes skirted with cooling woods
and traversed with sparkling streams.
He is not forever moaning and groan-
ing over a skeleton in his his closet;
he is shouting after live meat in the
forest. He is not dreaming of gold in
q little old, dirty, Sustained, spit
spotted countingroom; but he is dream.
ing of the antlered buck, or a bear at
bay, and listening for the rustic of the
wild turkeys wings, and drinking in
the melodies of the deep-tangled wild
wood. He is not the somnambulist of