Back when the Great North Woods of Maine was truly wilderness and that wilderness extended unbroken up through Canada to the pole and beyond, my father lived there, worked there, and he guided when there was no other work because of the depression. It is not too strong to say he had real contempt for most of these men, the "sports," after the fishing or hunt was over. Most would spend their time in lodge, drinking, telling bad jokes, cheating at cards, eating too much, and then the day or two before going back, paying a local--like my dad--for a trophy, and after they returned home, would lie to everyone about their great prowess as a mighty hunter. Not all were like this but the name "sport" was applies to all who were. It was a name filled with contempt. Still, there were some men who were really decent people and those were known by their real names, but this story is about one experience with a sport.

Most of the men who deserved the title "sport" thought a bigger gun made up for a lot of other inadequacies and so it became an item much bragged about and continually compared with other sport's rifles. My dad capitalized on this and made far more money than from the guiding itself.  One typical experience was when my dad waited until all the men in lodge got a bit liquored up and were competing with each other over cards and lies, in front of a nice fire kept burning by the locals. Dad brought his single shot, breech-loading, .22 caliber rim-fire rifle in, broke it across his knee in plain view of everyone, took a bunch of .22s out of his pocket, spilled them out on the table, and then picked one up to load in the chamber. Then he asked which gentleman was the one who was shopping for a trophy. They all howled with laughter, made many really insulting jokes, showed off their superior firearm, and so forth.

The howls continued for quite a while and they invariably called the little .22 a pea shooter. Dad then started to offer a little more bait. He acted a little insulted, or pretended to be. Actually, it was going according to plan. He focused on the big fat man with a big fat mouth and lots of money, jigging the bait. Finally, Dad told him to put his money where his mouth was. The man said, "I'll give you 10 to 1 odds you can't bring back a trophy buck with that little toy." Dad put a half dozen $20 gold pieces on the table--double eagles. The man's eyes started to turn sober but everyone else cheered and jeered him on. What could he do now? He agreed. BUT, he said, "You only can take that one bullet with you."

Dad took the gun with a single bullet in the chamber and walked out, leaving his other .22s on the table. He had done this many times and he knew for sure they were going to pay the taxes again this year and have plenty left over for other essentials, and perhaps some non-essentials too. He knew the country and he knew the game. Before tot, too long, he found a nice big buck that he'd scouted out earlier. He got up pretty close and with that little pea shooter, put a bullet into the trophy's eye socket. Just like snuffing a candle, pop, down he went. Brain shots do that and the nice thing about a .22 is that it didn't even exit the skull, just rattled around in there taking everything out. It was a perfect trophy--not a mark on it except for the eye shot and it would have glass eyes anyway -- mounted on the fat man's wall in New York, where he would brag to his big-city friends what a difficult shot it had been, not mentioning my father's role of course.

Dad had an old draft horse mare that wasn't afraid of the smell of death and he led her into the woods and recovered the big whitetail buck--the one without a bullet hole anywhere except the eye. He walked the mare back to camp, collected his winnings after a lot of loud talk from the fat man, and then returned home. He wouldn't need to guide another sport that season--thank God.