The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-17
HUNTERS PITCH A CAMP HERE
SWAP TALES OF THE'WILD At 4
STI'DIO DINNER.
Straight Talk by en- Army officer Of the
Dangerous Work or Hunting Moro
Eanatics-(ien Grants shooting Fest
In IndIa-HOw lie Got Ills FIRST Wound.

dinner crowd in New York. one could see
In the roll Of the chests that swelled under
dress shirts, in the clenrness of their eyes,
In the freshness Of their middle aged com
~plexiors that they didn't quite belong in a
Fortieth street studio building over a
fashionable cafe.
They didn't talk, either, OF the state Of
the market or the effect OF the rate bill
or over the consequences of the return of
Judge Hamilton. Their talk was all of
the out Of doors and Of strange animals
and strange details of the hunters kit.
They were a hundred members Of the Camp
fire Club, world wanderers caught in New
York in the closed season. dining at the
studio OF their president, A. A. Anderson.
painter by vocation, hunter Of big game
by choice.
They gathered in the lower rooms of
the studio and talked it over for an hour.
These are some, fra gments OF the talk that
Aoated out in the time Of ante-prandial
cocktails:
There's just one thing you can't get
In New York, and that's a grub kit. Last
year in the Yukon | saw a miner make
one for himself. He took a plain cracker
box"
Now I account for that splintering of the
tips of the mountain sheep in this way"
Ever see a grizzly run? Well, just
imagine a swimmer pounding away with
the %trudgeon stroke, and you've got it.
He rolls his old head to one side and puts
out the foot to the other side"
That's a fallacy that the rhino can't see.
He can see just as well as he can smell.
Why, once IN Uganda"
"The diamond hitch"-thisw was Dan Beard
A II 49,.
to whittle boats and tie knots-"I'd sooner
tie twenty diamond bitches than draw a
diagram OF one"
And Mr.. Beard, drinking a cocktail and
smoking a cigarette at one and the same
time, blew the smoke into the glass until
IL was like a DEVILS drink. drank the mixture
of and let out the smoke in the form of
vortex rings.
In Mr.. Anderson's edition de luxe Of a
studio upstairs tables were spread for
more than a hundred members. The
studio is big enough for a banquet room
Between the pillars to one side there Is a
pipe organ, from which a hidden player
produced music at intervals. Now, and
then, also, a singer from the cafe down
stairs punctuated the talk Of woods and
fields and old adventures on land and river
with the Toreador song or a few slaves
from Aida"
On the wall at the end Of the room there
looked down a portrait Of Irving Bachelor,
beside Mr.. Anderson's mural painting of
the Magdalen, and the original OF the por-
trait sat at the speakers table beside Gen.
Fred Grant for comparison. This was a
dinner that was a dinner. The company
and the surroundings had the formal public
banquet in the formal banquet room of a
hotel dashed to the mast.
President Anderson led off the speaking
by hoping that when the members pass
the Great Divide they will find the camp
fires not too warm. With these words he
called attention to Gen. Fred Grant, who
was waiting to tell some "reminiscences of
his hunt for big game.
Gen. Grant rose and in his quiet, COL
loquial way told some tales of the time
when he hunted big game in India on his
fathers tour around the world.
I'VE were visiting, " he said, "the Maha-
rajah Of something or other, and | told
him that | wanted to shoot some big game.
Very well. He made up a detail of indian
Princes and gave me a very pretty gun and
sent me off. 1t certainly was a pretty gun,
tut l don't think it could hit anything. We
gallo ped along until | saw a very pretty
little antelope. 1t looked delicate. 1t
they all stopped to let me shoot, and up
and shot. The antelope galloped gracefully
of.
"The whole company came up and con-
graduated me on my splendid shot. | re-
manned silent, having heard that / must
accustom myself to subtle Indian irony.
Blu they took me to a place fifty yards
from the place | had shot at, and there lay
a splendid antelope shot through the heart.
/ was equal to the emergency. told them
that / would not shoot any more that day.
was a sportsman, not a pot hunter. But,
gentlemen, although his horns are down at
Governors Island now | have always had
my doubts about who really did kill that
aYes, and | had a little shooting party
once such as few OF you have experienced.
/ was an officer in the old Fourth Cavalry.
We were out on an expedition against the
Comanohes in the Texas Panhandle. We
were in a gully when the shots began pop
ping and a party of about thirty CO.
manchee rushed US. The men dismo united,
the horses circled, and they rushed us and
opened fire at 500 yards. One fine fellow
rode in the lead, with his feather bonnet
flying, He was within a hundred yards of
us when he fell. After it was over and
they had scattered, i went out and got his
scalp and his war bonnet. had them until
/ married, but after that the family oh
Y jected to scalps."
That led Mr.. Anderson to tell a story
Of Gen, Ulysses S. Grant: When the Cen
eral was at Nikko the Mikado gave him
permission to cross the sacred red bridge,
across which. only the Emperor had ever
gone before. Gen. Grant himself showed
his tact and consideration when he walked
across to the middle of the bridge and then
turned back. He had awaited himself
OF the Emperor's honor. and at the same
time he had respected native tradition.
And that tale" said Mr.. Anderson,
ahas been told from one end of the Empire
to the other, Then, after a passing men
ton OF Theodore Roosevelt, honorary men,
her of the club. he introduced Gen. Horace
Porter.
sI'm going to indulge in that deceptive
form Of human speech known az a few re-
marks said the General. I'm no great
shakes as a hunter, The only tiger Ieverat-
tempted to buck was Tammany Hall. As
q hunter l remind myself of the fy>that bit
the elephants tail. They said to the fly,
You didn't expect to kill him, did your
and the fly said, No, but ! made him look
around
II never saw Grant shoot. but ! saw him
get shot-straight. 1t was when his father
was ca campaigning about Vicksburg, He had
TO go along. He crossed the Mississippi
with a toothbrush and a / bride. The tooth
brush WAS there 30 that II he saw any water
he could brush his teeth, and the bride was
so that il he saw a horse he could steal it.
He got shot in the leg doing it. The sur
geons asked, Can you wiggle your toes?'
And the exciting topic of the time in that
army was the question whether the Cen
erals kid could wriggle his toes"