Saxton T. Pope

“ As a rule, nothing does an arrow so much good as to shoot it, and nothing so much harm as to have it lie inactive and crowded in the quiver.
The flight of an arrow is symbolic of life itself. It springs from the bow with high aim, flies toward the blue heaven above, and seems to have immortal power. The song of its life is sweet to the ear. The rush of its upward arc is a promise of perpetual progress. ”

“ In the early dawn of life man took up weapons against the beasts about him. With club, ax, spear, knife, and sling he protected himself or sought his game. To strike at a distance, he devised the bow. With the implements of the chase he has won his way in the world.
Today there is no need to battle with the beasts of prey and little necessity to kill wild animals for food; but still the hunting instinct persists. The love of the chase still thrills us and all the misty past echoes with the hunter's call.
In the joy of hunting is intimately woven the love of the great outdoors. ”

“ These little hunters are keen for the sport and make their way beneath the brush where a larger dog follows with difficulty. With strident yelps the pack picks up the hot trail, and off they rush, helter skelter, through the sage and chaparral; we circle and cross cut, dash down the draw, traverse the open forest meadow and follow the furious procession into the trees.
There the hard-pressed little fox makes a final spurt for a large red pine, leaps straight for the bare trunk, mounts like a squirrel and gains a rotten limb, panting with effort. ”

“ May the gods grant us all space to carry a sturdy bow and wander through the forest glades to seek the bounding deer; to lie in the deep meadow grasses; to watch the flight of birds; to smell the fragrance of burning leaves; to cast an upward glance at the unobserved beauty of the moon. May they give us strength to draw the string to the cheek, the arrow to the barb and loose the flying shaft, so long as life may last. ”

“ But in that leap I gained all the thrill that I missed with my arrow. Such facile grace I never saw. Without an effort they rose, hovered an instant in midair, straightened their wonderful bushy tails as an aeroplane readjusts its flight, and soared level across the obstacle. One final downward curve of that beautiful counterbalance landed them smoothly on the distant side of the bush where, with uninterrupted speed, they vanished from sight. For the first time I appreciated why a fox has such a light, long, fluffy caudal appendage. ”

“ But he soon gets the idea and not waiting for the detonation of the gun, he accepts the hum of the bowstring and the whirr of the arrow as signals for action. Some dogs have even shown a tendency to retrieve our arrows for us, and nothing suits them better than that we go on foot, and by their sides can run with them and with our silent shafts can lay low what they bring to bay. In fact, it is a perfect balance of power--the hound with his wondrous nose, lean flanks and tireless legs; the man with his human reason, the horn, and his bow and arrow. ”

“ It was under these circumstances that outlawry took the form of deer killing and robust archery became the national sport. In these days the legendary hero, the demi-myth, Robin Hood, was born. What boy has not thrilled at the tales of Greenwood men, the well-sped shaft, the arrow's low whispering flight, and the willow wand split at a hundred paces?
Every boy goes through a period of barbarism, just as the nations have passed, and during that age he is stirred by the call of the bow. I, too, shot the toy bows of boyhood; shot with Indian youths in the Army posts of Texas and Arizona. ”

“ I am glad, so glad, that you young athletic men are following the wild trails armed with the most romantic weapon man ever fashioned, and I would give almost any precious thing I hold to fare with you once to the game land of your choice, and to watch and wait by a slender trail while you and your young, strong comrades stole through the secret haunts of the wild things, and to listen to the faint footfalls of the coming deer, roused by your entrance into their secret lairs. ”

“ How many I have missed to one I have killed! How often the fierce arrow hissed its threat close by the wide ears! How often the puff of lifted feathers has marked the innocuous passage of my very best arrow! How often the roar of wings has replied to the 'chuck' of my steel-head shaft as it stabbed the tree branch under the grouse's feet! ”

“ We just have to run; in fact, we have planned to run on our hands when our legs play out. With pounding hearts we surge ahead. "Keep the dogs within hearing!" "It can't last long!" But this time we come to a sudden halt on a rocky slide. We've lost the scent. The dogs circle and backtrack and work with feverish haste. The sun has risen, and up the mountain side comes a band of goats led by a single shepherd dog--no man in sight. We shout to the dog to steer his rabble away, but on they come, and obliterate our trail with a thousand hoofprints and a cloud of dust. ”

“ Cutting arrow feathers is a pleasant occupation around the fire in the winter evenings, and the real archer has the happiness of making his tackle while his mind dwells upon the coming spring shooting. As he makes his shaft he wonders what fate will befall it. Will it speed away in a futile shot, or last the grilling of a hundred practice flights, or will it be that fortunate arrow which flies swift and true and brings down the bounding deer? How often have I picked up a shaft and marked it, saying, "With this I'll kill a bear." ”

“ Although we have said much, and probably too much of ourselves, we have not spoken the last word in archery. There are a few things that we have learned of the art; others know more. And though we would praise our pastime beyond measure, protesting that it is healthful, admirable and full of romance, yet we cannot claim that it accomplishes all things and is the only sport a man should pursue.
Its devotees will find ample room for differences of opinion. The shape of a feather and the contour of a bow have been subjects for argument since time immemorial. Nor is our art suited to all men. ”

“ The bay of the hounds pealed out with every bound ahead of us. As we crossed the ridge, we heard them down the canyon below us, the crashing of the bear and the cry of the dogs thrilled us with a very old and a very strong flood of emotions. Panting and flushed with effort we rushed onward; legs, legs, and more air, 'twas all we wanted. Tom is tough and used to altitudes, Young is stronger and more youthful than I am, and besides a flapping quiver, an unwieldy bow, my camera banged me unmercifully on the back. ”

“ And so we, hunting in the early morning light, once saw a flock of quail flushed long before our presence should have given them cause for flight. Compton and Young, arrows nocked and muscles taut, crept cautiously to the thicket of wild roses out of which flew the quail. There, stooping low, they saw the spotted legs of a lynx softly stalking the birds. Aiming above the legs where surely there must be a body, Young sped an arrow. There was a thud, a snarl, and an animal tore through the crackling bushes. Out from the other side bounded the cat, and there, not twenty yards off, he met Compton. ”

“ The hunters rise from their sleeping bags, make a hasty meal of coffee and cakes, and long before the light of dawn sweeps the eastern sky, they must be on the trail. Silently and alert they enter the land of suspected deer. Taking advantage of every bit of cover, traveling into the wind where possible, looking at every shadow, every spot of moving color, they advance. Where trails exist they follow these, or if the ground be carpeted with soft pine needles, they flit between the deeper shades of the forest, watchful, and hearing every woodland sound. ”

“ We proposed to slip down the little ravine at the edge of the timber, cross the stream, ascend the hill on the opposite side, and come up on our quarry over the crest. We should thus be within shooting distance. The wind was right for this maneuver, so we started at once.
Now as I write my muscles quiver, my heart thumps and I flush with a strange feeling, thinking of that moment. Like a soldier before a battle, we waded into an uncharted experience. What does a man think of as he is about to enter his first grizzly encounter? ”

“ We swam the streams together, hunted deer and small game, and at night sat under the stars by the camp fire, where in a simple way we talked of old heroes, the worlds above us, and his theories of the life to come in the land of plenty, where the bounding deer and the mighty bear met the hunter with his strong bow and swift arrows. ”

“ The force behind the flying shaft must be placed there by the archer. At the moment of greatest strain he must draw every sinew to the utmost; his hand must be steady; his nerves under absolute control; his eye keen and clear. In the hunt he pits his well-trained skill against the instinctive cunning of his quarry. By the most adroit cleverness, he must approach within striking distance, and when he speeds his low whispering shaft and strikes his game, he has won by the strength of arm and nerve. It is a noble sport. ”

“ And after the arrow has left the bow, hold the pose! Carry through! Imagine yourself as a statue of an archer, and stay just in that position until you hear the arrow strike.
Just in the beginning, at forty yards, with thirty arrows, you may be satisfied if you hit the target between sixteen and twenty-one times out of the thirty shots and make a score of from sixty to eighty points. Your ambition will be, as in golf, to "break" a hundred. By the time you have done that your muscles will be in shape and you can begin on the American Round. ”

“ The true hunter counts his achievement in proportion to the effort involved and the fairness of the sport.
With the rapid development of firearms, hunting tends to lose its sporting quality. The killing of game is becoming too easy; there is little triumph and less glory than in the days of yore. Game preservation demands a limitation of armament. We should do well to abandon the more powerful and accurate implements of destruction, and revert to the bow.
Here we have a weapon of beauty and romance. He who shoots with a bow, puts his life's energy into it. ”

“ To them and the many other worthy bowmen who have fostered the art in America, we are eternally grateful. The self-imposed discipline of target shooting is much harder work than the carefree effort of hunting. The rewards, however, are less spectacular.
To you who would follow us into the land of Robin Hood, let me say that what you need most is a great longing to come, and perseverance; for if I should try to explain how we have accomplished even that little we have in hunting, I would protest that it is because we have held to an idea and been persistent. ”

“ Frost trailed him by almost invisible blood stains and tracks, and found him less than a quarter of a mile away, huddled up as if asleep on the hillside, my arrow nestled to his breast. The broken shaft with its blade deep in the thorax had completely severed the head of his humerus, cut two ribs, and killed him by hemorrhage from the pulmonary arteries. Half-grown as he was, he would have made an ugly antagonist for any man. ”

“ As if shot, they are off in a bunch. A clatter of sounds, scratching, rustling, and scrambling, we hear them tearing through the brush. We follow, but are soon outdistanced. Down the creek bed we go, splash through mud, clamber over logs, stop, listen, and hear them baying, afar off. Their voices rise in a chorus, some are high-pitched, incessant yelps, some are deep-voiced, bell-like tones. We know they have him treed and, breathless, we push forward, arriving in the order of our physical vigor, those with the best legs and lungs coming first. ”

“ In all, we have shot about thirty deer with the bow. The majority of these fell before the shafts of Will Compton, while Young and I have contributed in a smaller measure to the count. Despite the vague regrets we always feel at slaying so beautiful an animal, there is an exultation about bringing into camp a haunch of venison, or hanging the deer on the limb of a sheltering tree, there to cool near the icy spring. By the glow of the campfire we broil savory loin steaks, and when done eating, we sit in the gloaming and watch the stars come out. ”

“ I saw Compton spit such a bird on his arrow at fifty yards, while a confused scurrying flock made easy shooting for two hunters. I am ashamed to say that we have often taken advantage of the evening roosting of these birds in trees to secure a supper for ourselves.
But the archer must exercise caution in this team work in the brush. He should never forget that an arrow will kill a man as readily as it does an animal and that one should always consider where his shot ultimately will land, both for the purpose of finding his shaft and avoiding accidents. Arrows have a great habit of glancing. ”

“ The Thompsons devoted much of their bow shooting to birds. Not only did they hunt, but they studied the abundant avian life of the Florida coast.
An archer must always, perforce, study animate nature and learn its ways before he can capture it. In our early training with Ishi, the Indian, he taught us to look before he taught us to shoot. "Little bit walk, too much look," was his motto. The roving eye and the light step are the signs of the forest voyageur. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Just as the light defined the margins of the trail, we picked up in the grayness the track of a lion. Strange to say, the dogs had not smelled it, but when we pointed to the footprint in the dust, which was apparently none too fresh, they took up the work of tracking. It is astonishing to see how a dog can tell which way a track leads. If in doubt, he runs quickly back and forth on the scent, and thus gauges the way the animal has progressed. ”

“ To make a very fine bow is a real art and requires much experience and many trials. But to make a serviceable bow that will shoot and will hold up for a time is not very difficult. And it is great fun! The first occasion on which you go afield with bow, bowstring, arrow, quiver, bracer, and finger tips all of your own composition, and loose the shaft and the thing not only flies well but straight and far, you will taste a wonder and a satisfaction new to your experience. It will probably take you some time to convince yourself that somehow the whole outfit is not a base imitation. ”

“ It takes an inveterate optimist to stand the moral strain of persistent missing. In fact, it is this that spoils the archery career of many a tyro--he gives up in despair. It looks so easy, but really is so difficult to hit the mark. But do not be cast down, keep eternally at practice, and ultimately you will be rewarded. Nothing stands a man in such good stead in this matter as to have started shooting in his youth.
And do not imagine that we are infallible in our shooting. Some of the most humiliating moments of our lives have come through poor shooting. ”