Oh, Shoot! Confessions of an Agitated Sportsman

by Rex Beach

OH, SHOOT Confessions of An Agitated Sportsman JLJL By REX BEAC Author of THE SPOILERS THE BARRIER THE SILVER HORDE ETC. With Illustrations from Photographs zken by the Author HARPER V BROTHERS PUBLISHERS YORK APP LONDON CONTENTS CHAP. PACK I. GEESE i II. THE CHRONICLE OF A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT . . 39 ITT. THK SAN BLAS PEOPLE, 105 IV. ON THE TRAIL OF THE COWARDLY COUGAR . . . 141 V. MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 216 ILLUSTRATIONS WE MET THE CARAVAN COMING IN .... Frontispiece THERE WERE FIVE OF Us IN THE PARTY MAXI MILIAN FOSTER AND GRANTLAND RICE, FEL LOW SCRIBES, AND DUKE AND DUCHESS, Two ENGLISH SETTERS THAT WE TOOK ALONG TO INVESTIGATE THE QUAIL RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY Facing p. 14 THIS BOAT WAS ESPECIALLY BUILT FOR HUNTING IN SHALLOW WATERS, AND WHILE SHE Is NOT MUCH TO LOOK AT, SHE Is WARM AND COMFORTABLE 15 Ri AND NATHAN, OUR GUIDES. BOTH ARE BANKS MEN, BORN AND RAISED CLOSE TO THE HAT TERAS SURF 15 WE MANAGED TO COLLECT A FAIR NUMBER OF BIRDS 22 THE HARBOR, OCRACOKE, PAMLICO SOUND, WHICH MARKS, ROUGHLY, THE GOOSES SOUTHERN LIMIT 23 OCRACOKE, CENTER OF THE GOOSE-HUNTING IN DUSTRY, Is A QUAINT NEW ENGLAND VIL LAGE PITCHED ON THE OUTER RIM OF PAM LICO SOUND 23 POST OFFICE, OCRACOKE 23 FEEDING THE LIVE DECOYS 26 PUTTING DOWN A BATTERY RIG 27 RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION, COPPER RIVER RAIL ROAD 42 vii ILLUSTRATIONS FREIGHTING CONSTRUCTION SUPPLIES UP THE COPPER RIVER Facing . 42 CORDOVA, THE TOWN WHICH HAD SPRUNG UP AT THE TERMINUS OF MR. HENEYS RAIL ROAD. WHEN ONLY THIRTY DAYS OLD IT HAD TWENTY SALOONS AND A SAWMILL . . 43 CAPTURE OF Two BEAR CUBS 46 Two BLACK BEAR CUBS 46 WE HAD No MEANS OF MEASURING OUR PRIZE, BUT THE CARCASS WAS TREMENDOUS . . 47 THE DISTANCE FROM FRED STONES BOOT TRACKS ANDHis SPENT SHELLS TO THE CARCASS WAS A SCANT TWENTY FEET . 47 WE LOADED A SKIFF UPON ONE OF MR. HENEYS FLAT CARS AND SAW IT SAFELY INTO THE MUDDY WATERS OF THE STREAM ... 54 TROUT FISHING, LAKE EYAK 55 THE COPPER RIVER DELTA Is FULL OF GOOD CAMPING PLACES LIKE THIS 62 WE WERE SCRUPULOUSLY NEAT IN OUR HOUSE KEEPING 63 SUCH A PELT FOR SOFTNESS AND BEAUTY I HAVE SELDOM SEEN 63 CHILDS GLACIER, A TOWERING WALL OF SOLID ICE 70 ABERCROMBIE CANON, COPPER RIVER, NEAR THE GLACIER 71 LOWER END OF CHILDS GLACIER 78 ICE BREAKING OFF CHILDS GLACIER, COPPER RIVER, ALASKA 79 BOILING THE KETTLE . ., 86 BEAR BROWN AND SKINS FROM ONE HUNT . u 87 ONE OF THE PICTURES WHICH THE DOCTOR HAD CLANDESTINELY SECURED DURING OFFICIAL VISITS no viii ILLUSTRATIONS THESE KEYS WERE LIKE CLEAN, ORDERLY, LIT TLE PICNIC GROUNDS Facing p. in CARDI, THE PLACE OF DEAD BONES Is THE LARGEST AND BEST VILLAGE AT THE WEST ERN END OF THE ARCHIPELAGO .... us A SAN BLAS VILLAGE WITH ITS PALM-THATCHED HOUSES AND SOME OF ITS INHABITANTS . . 119 A FRESH WIND WAS BLOWING WHEN THE WISDOM NOSED OUT THROUGH THE BREAKWATER AND HEADED TOWARD SOUTH AMERICA 122 SEVERAL DUGOUTS, MANNED BY NAKED BOYS, CIRCLED Us AT A RESPECTFUL DISTANCE . 122 THE START OF THE RACE 123 A SAN BLAS CANOE 123 Rows OF NAKED BOYS PERCHED ALONG THE RAILS LIKE BLACKBIRDS 126 BY THIS TIME THE BOYS HAD ADOPTED Us AND MADE THEMSELVES MASTERS OF THE SHIP 127 WE SPENT MUCH TIME ASHORE AND EASILY ES TABLISHED FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH THE INHABITANTS 134 A PRIMITIVE SAN BLAS CANE MILL .... 134 OWING TO THEIR DIMINUTIVE SIZE, IT Is DIFFI CULT TO DISTINGUISH THE WOMEN FROM THE GIRLS EXCEPT BY THEIR HAIR ... 135 THE CROCODILES ARE INCREDIBLY THICK AND VERY SIZABLE 138 WB SUPPLIEDTHE VILLAGE WITH FISH, Too, FOR THE STREAMS WERE CHOKED WITH GIANT SNAPPERS, JEWFISH, AND TARPON . 138 WE Pur FULL TRUST IN THESE LITTLE MEN WHOM WE FOLLOWED INTO WILDERNESSES AND SWAMPS 139 ix ILLUSTRATIONS WE PISHED THE CARDI RIVER AND WE HUNTED IT Facing p...

Unbound

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

Rex Ellingwood Beach was born in Atwood, Michigan to a prominent family and pursued a career as a lawyer before being drawn to Alaska at the time of the Klondike Gold Rush. After five years of unsuccessful prospecting, he turned to writing.

His first novel, The Spoilers, was based on a true story of corrupt government officials stealing gold mines from prospectors, which he witnessed while he was prospecting in Nome, Alaska. It became one of the best selling novels of 1906.

His adventure novels, influenced by Jack London, were immensely popular throughout the early 1900s. Beach was lionized as the "Victor Hugo of the North," but others found his novels formulaic and predictable. Critics described them as cut from the "he-man school" of literature: stories of "strong hairy men doing strong hairy deeds." Alaska historian Stephen Haycox has said many of Beach's works are "mercifully forgotten today."

One such potboiler, The Silver Horde (1909), is set in Kalvik, a fictionalized community in Bristol Bay, Alaska, and tells the story of a down on his luck gold miner who discovers a greater wealth in Alaska's run of salmon (silver horde) and decides to open a cannery. To accomplish this he must overcome the relentless opposition of the "salmon trust," a fictionalized Alaska Packers' Association, which undercuts his financing, sabotages his equipment, incites a longshoremen's riot and bribes his fishermen to quit. The story line includes a love interest as the protagonist is forced to choose between his fiance, a spoiled banker's daughter, and an earnest roadhouse operator, a woman of "questionable virtue." Real life cannery superintendent Crescent Porter Hale has been credited with being the inspiration of The Silver Horde but it's unlikely Beach and Hale ever met.

After success in literature, many of his works were adapted into successful films; The Spoilers became a stage play, then was remade into movies five times from 1914 to 1955, with Gary Cooper and John Wayne each playing "Roy Glennister" in 1930 and 1942, respectively. The Silver Horde was twice made into a movie, as a silent film in 1920 starring Myrtle Stedman, Curtis Cooksey and Betty Blythe and directed by Frank Lloyd; and a talkie in 1930 that starred Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea and Evelyn Brent and was directed by George Archainbaud.

Beach occasionally produced his films and also wrote a number of plays to varying success. In 1949, two years after the death of his wife Edith, Beach committed suicide in Sebring, Florida at the age of 71. In 2005, when the home Beach lived in was remodeled, a bullet was found in the wall, believed to be the bullet that ended his life.

Beach served as the first president of the Rollins College Alumni Association. He and his wife are buried in front of the Alumni house. Beach, and his most famous novel, were commemorated in 2009 by the naming of a walking/bike trail in Dobbs Ferry, NY, where he once resided, called "Spoilers Run".