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S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 5 9 " J I and races for sanctuary. Taking aim, Jack anticipates the route and effortlessly swings into the shot, threading a slug through the dense trees into the deer's heart. After the crash he opens the breech, catches the hull in midair, and waits in silence, knowing the Winchester is won. " J ack?" "Um . . . yes?" "Why don't you enlighten the class with what you know about Walter Mitty?" "Who?" "I see. How about The Lady or the Tiger? Did you at least finish that one?" After the teacher called, Jack knew what would be waiting behind the door for him when he got home. Truth be told, even Walter Mitty would miss with the Stevens. Jack hated it, embarrassed by the battered, silver-barreled 12-gauge single-shot flintlock that once belonged to his great-grandfather, who had killed his first buck with it. A faded picture of him holding the gun and grinning beside a heavy-antlered buck still hung over the fireplace. Passed down through the generations from boy to boy, the gun was embedded in Troutwine tradition as firmly as that big oak still rooted to the soil out back. A beginning hunter's rite of passage included, among other things, carrying the old gun for a minimum of two years or until killing a deer, whichever came first. Jack found such reverence for ritual corny, something cooked up by old men lost in the past. Why handicap someone with a one-shot beater just because some dead relative killed a deer with it? Even Perry was allowed to carry a pump-gun. The only one ever to beat the two-year requirement was his grandfather, who reportedly took an eight- point his first year afield at the age of nine, a surprising and questionable feat given his size back then when compared to the heft and length of the Stevens. Unless he were Popeye after a can of spinach, there was no way such a small boy could've shot that deer with the Stevens. Suspicious, Jack figured the tale was bunk concocted to impress nimrods like him into thinking they had a ghost of a chance of taking a deer with the relic. Worse was the extended apprenticeship where would-be hunters at an early age accompanied their fathers afield to learn the lore and earn the "privilege" to hunt. Safety, ethics, tactics, rituals . . . the worst being repeated, grueling drives through the alder swamp in an effort to push deer toward the older hunters . . . were paramount to each boy's training. These initiations also included blind building, knife and hatchet training, compass proficiency, tracking skills, knowledge of weather conditions, and gun handling. By the time a Troutwine finished his tutelage and was allowed to carry a gun in the deer woods, he was expected to know right from wrong and he was usually 12, much to 15-year-old Jack's chagrin. I t was no secret that Jack chafed at the restrictions and expectations imposed on him. His conduct often warranted punishment and delayed his acceptance to deer camp except to work the drives and clean up the campsite. There was the matter of frogs, turtles, sparrows, and chipmunks slain for no reason, BB-gun killings found by his father who suspended Jack's "hunting" by taking a hammer to his Daisy and grounding him for a summer. The silent disappointment radiating from his father that day shamed Jack, but his bloodlust was equally compelling. Later killings went hidden . . . raccoons, possum, squirrels, and rabbits out of season, even a hen pheasant. Jack's sneaking and shooting of the .22 going unreported and unknown until a neighbor saw him take a bead on his cat. It was nearly the last straw and would have been if not for his mother's intervention. She believed a third chance was warranted if Jack were thinkstock