President Joseph F. Smith

HUNTING THE WILD BOAR 611

procured for me a gun, a beautiful 12-gauge hammerless and gave me four shells, two marked with a-g on the wad and two with a-12. He told me the shell with the 12 went in the right barrel and the one with the g in the left, and that there were twelve buckshot in one and nine in the other, the left barrel holding a little larger size for the second shot. He carefully explained how to use the gun and with many a "Oui! Oui!" as if I had never seen a gun before, he picked out a lanky hunter and said, "Go wis him." One more "Oui!" and off we started. That fellow was some walker. He smoked a pipe constantly, and as we neared the forest, where the hunt was to be held, I endeavored to find out a little more about this animal. He knew no English at all, so that with my little French and signs there was much difficulty found in getting what information I desired. Not wishing to pull a bone on my first hunt I desired to know if one just killed the old boars and let the sows and little ones go. He told me to shoot at any of them. This was about all the information gleaned up to the time we reached the forest, although the conversation had waxed warm, when suddenly he stopped short and looked at the ground. It was covered with grass and leaves at this point. He walked back a few steps and looked down and I peered down and looked for tracks, but couldn't see any. He was getting quite excited by now and thinking that perhaps he could see tracks where I was unable to, I must confess that I almost loaded the gun to prepare for an emergency, when he pounced on something and it was the bowl of his pipe that had fallen off as he walked! As we reached the forest he had me load the gun and it naturally found its way to the crook of my left elbow as it always did in the field. We met some other hunters presently and one of them told me that the gun should not be carried that way, but by the strap over the left shoulder so that if it went "poom" it would shoot up in the air. This was my first lesson in the technique of the hunt. The strap is attached on the lower side of the gun from a little below midway on the stock to about twelve inches off the end of the barrel. The gun is carried by the strap until a post is taken, when it is removed and pointed into the forest. It becomes a fine item in the measure of safety to be carried in this manner. The forest is blocked off in parcels containing ten to twenty acres, with fine roadways or paths, sometimes fifty feet wide, running at right angles to each other. They appear to have been cut for the hunters. The shooters are placed on these paths on three sides of a block at intervals of one to two hundred yards, and the beaters and dogs are sent into the fourth. The shooter does not stand in the middle of this pathway, but right up against the block of forest that the beaters are working out. This is so that when a boar is