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66 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S and uses different rifles and bores. Some believe in big bores. And there is no end to the arguments and contentions brought forward by either side. I have tried the .416, .450/.400, .360, .350, .818, .275, and .256. And I possessed the double .400. Each hunter should use the weapon he has most confidence in. If wrongly placed, the 800 grs. from the .400 has no more effect than the 200 grs. from the .275." Which leaves the last man standing— the one listening, holding the Winchester Model 70. He's hanging on Karamojo's every word, soaking up the wisdom of a man who had gathered a gracious plenty experience over a long lifetime and learned by it. Maybe that man is you. You may not look like him, bear no resemblance in age, height, or build. But if you're a sportsman, then it's you, all right. You've gone to Africa, many times, if only in your dreams. You're the guy who had a clean shot at a ruffed grouse in November when the trees were bare of leaves, but you missed because the beauty of your setter's perfect point caused tears of pride to well up in your eyes and blur your aim. You're the one who begins crossing the days off the calendar a half- year before opening day and forgot your wedding anniversary because you got caught up casting bullets or reloading shotshells. You splash on "Eau du Woods" all through hunting season and though it smells like a doe in estrus and people walk away from you, you don't care so long as a ten-point buck walks up to you. You tell your children stories about the joy of hunting with your dad, and how it didn't matter that you couldn't feel your frozen feet in your waders those bitter-cold mornings in the blind, make a world of difference to anybody. So he turned to Chabani, the Wa-Kibuyu car boy and asked, "Na kuja lorry?'" "'Ndio'" I replied. "'Wapi pombe?'" he says. "'Hapa,'" says I. "'Kariba.'" "'Magi kwa bwana!'" Chabani answered. "'What did you say to that?'" Trueblood would have retorted. "'There was only one thing to say! Toa bundouki, Chabani,'" I told him. "'That's a laugh!'" Trueblood would have roared. And when you think of it, it is pretty funny. S o, who could the white-haired man be? Obviously he's the oldest of the lot. Could he have been W.D.M. "Karamojo" Bell. Looks like him. What an amazing man. Born into a wealthy Scottish family whose estate, Clifton Hall, outside of Edinburgh, looked like Downton Abbey. He was orphaned by age 6, taken under the wing of his older brothers, flew off at the tender age of 13 to sail the ocean blue as a deckhand, and by 16, was hunting elephants in Africa. Listen in on his conversation . . . "Every hunter has different methods checkered lumberjack shirt. The only use he'd have for a tie would be to pull out the silk threads for the front hackle of a Royal Coachman. And while the official cook of the Lower Forty Club was Cousin Sid, the cook in the illustration looks an awful lot like outdoor writer and conservationist Cecil Whittaker "Ted" Trueblood. Ted was one of Ford's inner circle of hunting companions and for 40 years a Field & Stream editor. Piles of letters between Ford and his many hunting companions over the years talk about the things they mutually treasured: a custom flyrod that landed a Hendrickson within an inch of a rising trout, a shotgun that shot straight and even sometimes around a tree that got in the way of a partridge, and a staunch dog on point who scowled when you missed a clear shot. But these men in Stone's illustration don't just hunt birds. Look at those rifles lined up against the wall and that pronghorn head. Perhaps it was shot in Wyoming by the man bending over the grill. My, he looks a lot like Robert Ruark. When Ruark's doctor advised him to take a year's rest from writing, he followed his dream and set out for Africa to hunt with great white hunter Harry Selby and his native tracker, Kidogo. Ruark would surely fit into this group. What's more, he knew Ford. In 1953 both men began writing columns for Field & Stream— Ford, "Minutes of the Lower Forty," and Ruark, "The Old Man and the Boy." You can almost hear Ruark talking to Trueblood over the spit, recounting one of his stories from Horn of the Hunter: "He had a priceless bottle of Scotch someone in Nairobi had given him, which would "We ate it." by john Troy – CourTeSy SkyhorSe pubLiShing