New York Was Far Away

New York Was Far Away

The valley was long and narrow, filled with the green of rich grass and the pale gold of frost-touched arctic willow. Along the edges of the valley was a thick border of spruce, but not far up the mountainsides, the woods played out in a scattering of scrubby trees....
A Man-Killing Bear

A Man-Killing Bear

Shocked and angered by his friend’s horrible death, the old trapper was determined to get revenge. Almost every trapper past middle age who has spent his life in the wilderness has stories to tell about exceptionally savage bears. One of these stories was told in my...
Roosevelt the Rifleman

Roosevelt the Rifleman

With horse and rifle he explored frontiers, indulging a lust that would transcend politics.  Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. defined the bully pulpit, spared the teddy bear and led the strenuous life. “I do not believe,” he declared in a late retrospective, “that any...
Great Misses

Great Misses

“I have never missed a deer!” proudly proclaimed a relatively new hunter sitting across from me at a late November campfire. I glanced at Luke Clayton, my longtime friend and hunting partner, who was sitting next to him. He smiled and wagged his head in a negative...
Don’t Fence Me In

Don’t Fence Me In

Pronghorns numbers are benefiting thanks to funding by Pittman-Robertson. A state highway that reels off into the distance looks like a sun-scorched, gray-black ribbon laid over tawny grassy hills. Lonely locust trees here and there over much of the West favor their...
Buffalo Bill: Life, Legend and the Wild West

Buffalo Bill: Life, Legend and the Wild West

In the echoes of our Civil War, the West drew a tide of emigrants from the rubble of battlefields once communities. Rootless, embittered men drifted across the prairies, in and out of crime. Hostile tribes imperiled settlers who’d endured the privations of wagon...
The Eyes Have It!

The Eyes Have It!

It was an embarrassing moment to say the least. I, an experienced wildlife biologist, lifelong hunter, had pointed toward three animals on a broad New Mexico plain north of Roswell and proclaimed them to be pronghorn antelope. “I don’t think so,” said my wife. “I...
Rogue Male: Ewart Grogan

Rogue Male: Ewart Grogan

There is a certain kind of man who can get away with damn near anything. They generally come from a line of charming rebels and often combine good looks with a devil-may-care attitude and a distaste for authority. Standing alone is their superpower, vanity their...
Monarch of the Zselics

Monarch of the Zselics

The stag understood who he was. He stood next to a tree line in Hungary’s Zselic Mountains where his hinds could admire him and the smaller stags hidden in the forest would know they were trespassing. The stag’s head was crowned with heavy antlers that stretched out...
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