his he shortly did, as we shall see.

The time came when cotton went up to sixteen cents a pound and
single breech-loading guns went down to five dollars apiece. The
negro had money now, and the merchants--these men who had said let
the nigger alone so long as he raises cotton and corn--sold him the
guns, a gun for every black idler, man and boy, in all the South.
Then shortly a wail went up from the sportsmen, "The niggers are
killing our quail." They not only were killing them, but most of the
birds were already dead. On the grounds of the Southern Field Club
where sixty bevies were raised by the dogs in one day, within two
years but three bevies could be found in a day by the hardest kind
of hunting; and this story was repeated all over the South. Now the
negro began to raise bird dogs in place of hounds, and he carried
his new gun to church if services happened to be held on a week day.
Finally the negro had grown up and had compassed his ambition: he
could shoot partridges flying just the same as a white man, was a
white man except for a trifling difference in color; and he could
kill more birds, too, three times as many. It was merely a change
from the old order to the new in which a dark-skinned "sportsman"
had taken the place in plantation life of the dear old "Colonel" of
loved memory. The negro had exacted his price for raising cotton and
corn.

[Illustration: THE SOUTHERN-NEGRO METHOD OF COMBING OUT THE WILD LIFE
"Our colored sportsman is gregarious at all times, but especially so in
the matter of recreation. He may slouch about alone, and pot a bevy or
two of quail when in actual need of something to eat, or when he has a
sale for the birds, but when it comes to shooting for fun he wants to be
with the 'gang'."--Charles Askins.
Reproduced from Recreation Magazine. By permission of the Outdoor World.]

Our colored sportsman is gregarious at all times, but especially so
in the matter of recreation. He may slouch about alone and pot a
bevy or two of quail when in actual need of something to eat, or
when he has a sale for the birds, but when it comes to shooting for
fun he wants to be with the "gang." I have seen the darkies at
Christmas time collect fifty in a drove with every man his dog, and
spread out over the fields. Such a glorious time as he has then! A
single cottontail will draw a half-dozen shots and perhaps a couple
of young bucks will pou