With other
minor appurtenances in the ditty bag, including an arrow-repairing kit,
one's burden is less than twenty pounds, an easy load.
If you have a dog, make him carry his own dry meal in little
saddle-bags on his back, as Dan Beard suggests. Then, with two dozen
arrows in your quiver, and your bow, the open trail lies ahead. There
is always meat to be had for the shooting. The camp fire and your dog
are companions at night, and at dawn all the world rolls out before you
as you go. It is a happy life!
When Ishi started to shoot with me, one bowman after another appeared
on the scene to join us. Among the first came Will Compton, a man of
mature years and many experiences. Brought up on the plains, he learned
to shoot the bow with the Sioux Indians. As a boy of fourteen he shot
his first deer with an arrow. From that time on, deer, elk, antelope,
birds of all sorts, and even buffalo fell before this primitive weapon.
He later hunted with the gun until the very ease of killing turned him
against it. So when he came to us, he was a seasoned archer. Upon a
visit to a Japanese archery gallery in the Panama-Pacific Exposition he
met for the first time Arthur Young, also an expert hunter with the
gun.
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