Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1895 — SQUIRRELS ARE SHREWD. [ARTICLE]

SQUIRRELS ARE SHREWD.

It Takes a Smart Hunter to Get a Shot at Hushytail. ~~ ;■ “Of course,” said tlie hunter, “evei;y-' body knows that when a man with a gun comes atone the gray squirrel goes around on the other side of the tree. Hi* .dnesn’i rrQi killed if he pan help it, and, he: can help himself pretty well. I renlemDer oiice cOfif.ug across a gray squirrel up a big oak; he was dtit on a branch about forty feet from the ground.’ Tie saw me as quick as I did him—quicker, I guess -and When I was ready to fire he was around on the other side of the branch. This branch was very small, only a little bigger than the squifrel, but he, hugged it so close and he was in such perfect line with me that you couldn’t see anything of him at all except a little bit of tlie tip •of ills tail that was blown out bv a strong wind. I blazed away at him and’never touched liiiivT Then I went arqund on the other side of the tree, -thinking that" possibly I could get a shot at him from tpere, but as I went one way lie went the other and time I had got over on the other side ho was on the aide I had come from and -In-just its pei’feetTinewviifKpTe as ho wasat first, and just as safe, ffried him agarn witlr just t lie sa me result. “Then I milled a stake out of a rail fence near by and planted it in the ground-on one side-oft lie ireo and hung my coat on it, and went myself over to the other side; I thought that possibly I might make the squirrel think there were two men there, or put him iu doubt long enough to enable me toget a shot at him, but lie never paid the slightest attention to the coat. I don’t suppose it would have made auy difference to him if I’d opened a clothing storerihere; he knew the man witli tiie gun, and it was the gun that he was’ looking out for. Well, we dodged around that tree fbr quite a spell longer. There wasn’t Any other tree heat by tliat-the squirrel could gn to, and ho knew his only safety lay in sticking to the one he was in, and the way he did stick to it and keep around always on the other side of that branch was something wonderful. I fired five or six shots at him altogether ami tilled the branch under him halt full of shot, but never touched him, and when I thought I had Wasted time and ammunition enough I left him.”—New York Sun. "j