would lift a beetle from his garden walk rather than crush it becomes an
ardent murderer when he camps. Probably there are no adequate apologies.
And yet we all get the fever at some time or another, and taste the
fascination of pitting our wits and woodcraft against the native cunning
of the wild thing we stalk. Your ethical friend--who probably is a
vegetarian to boot!--here at once objects. He says the contest is
cruelly uneven; that the odds of a high-powered rifle spoil the
argument. Which, in a way, is quite true. But Heaven knows we would
never taste venison or have bear rugs before our den fires if their
capture was left to our naked hands!

However, this is dangerous ground, and most of us brush past it when
vacation time comes, and take out our hunting license as automatically
as we make up our order for corn-meal and bacon. From our rods we expect
full creels, and hope for game from the guns.

"Any luck?"

That is the first question when you get home, and a negative answer
implies defeat. Unless you get something, be prepared for the
I-thought-as-much expression when your friend sympathizes with you. An
incentive and a temptation it is--some of the worst of us and some of
the best of us have nearly fallen (nearly, I say) and offered gold to a
small boy with the basket which was full of fish when ours was empty.
And the game laws--there, in truth, is where sportsmanship at times is
forced into tight corners!

We had hunted deer for two solid, leg-wearying days. But the woods were
very dry, and the deer heard us long before we saw them, except for a
doe or two, uncannily aware of the safety of their sex. On the morrow we
hit the homeward trail, and were disconsolate at the prospect of a
venisonless return.

Crackle!

Something moved in the thicket below me. Another stir and the
"something" resolved itself into a deer. Up came the light carbine--the
weapon _par excellence_ for saddle trips--while I sighted across seventy
yards of sunshine at the brown beast moving gracefully about, nipping at
hanging moss and oblivious of danger.

But the carbine did not speak. Conscience and familiarity with the game
laws battled for some thirty seconds with inclination and desire for
venison. Then conscience won, and the doe continued her dainty feeding,
undisturbed.

In days gone by, our copy-book mottoes told us that "Virtue is its own
reward." As a general thing such automatic recompense is unsatisfactory,
so whe