When Arthur Young, Will Compton, and I began hunting with the bow, we wrote Will Thompson to join us. Because he is such a commanding figure in the history of our craft, I think it proper to quote from one of his letters:
"MY DEAR DR. POPE:
"The Sunset Magazine containing your charming account of Ishi and your hunting adventures, and the bunch of photographs of the transfixed deer, quail, and rabbits came duly, and are mine, now, tomorrow, and for life. You were very fortunate to have won your archery triumphs where you could photograph them. I would give much indeed if I could have photos of the scenes of my brother's and my successes in the somber and game-thronged wilds of the gloomy Okefinokee Swamp. I think I sent you long ago the two numbers of Forest and Stream in which the history of that most wonderful of all my outings appeared. If I did not do so I will loan you the only copy I have. Let me know.
"I am glad, so glad, that you young athletic men are following the wild trails armed with the most romantic weapon man ever fashioned, and I would give almost any precious thing I hold to fare with you once to the game land of your choice, and to watch and wait by a slender trail while you and your young, strong comrades stole through the secret haunts of the wild things, and to listen to the faint footfalls of the coming deer, roused by your entrance into their secret lairs. To see the soft and devious approach of the wary thing; to see the lifted light head turned sharply back toward the evil that roused it from its bed of ferns; to feel the strong bow tightening in my hand as the thin, hard string comes back; to feel the leap of the loosened cord, the jar of the bow, and see the long streak of the going shaft, and hear the almost sickening 'chuck' of the stabbing arrow. No one can know how I have loved the woods, the streams, the trails of the wild, the ways of the things of slender limbs, of fine nose, of great eager ears, of mild wary eyes, and of vague and half-revealed forms and colors. I have been their friend and mortal enemy. I have so loved them that I longed to kill them. But I gave them far more than a fair chance.
"How many I have missed to one I have killed! How often the fierce arrow hissed its threat close by the wide ears! How often the puff of lifted feathers has marked the innocuous passage of my very best arrow! How often the roar of wings has replied to the 'chuck' of my steel-head shaft as it stabbed the tree branch under the grouse's feet! Oh, le bon temps, que de siècle de fer.
"Let me know whether I sent you Deep in Okefinokee Swamp. I enclose you a little poem published long ago in Forest and Stream and picked up by the Literary Digest and other periodicals. You will, I think, feel the love of the bow, and the outdoors, as well as the great cry for the lost brother running through the long sob that pervades it.
"Send me anything you publish, for I know I should be pleased. Love to you and a handgrasp to your comrade archers.
"WILL THOMPSON."
After the Civil War, where both youths fought in the Confederate Army and Maurice was wounded, they returned to their Southern home, broken in health, reduced in circumstances, and deprived of firearms by Government restrictions. They turned to the bow and hunting as naturally as a boy turns to play. Out of their experiences we have a lyric of exquisite purity, The Witchery of Archery.
As a result of the interest stimulated by the recount of their exploits, the National Archery Association was established and held its first tournament at Chicago in the year 1879. It has ever since nurtured the sport and furthered competitive enthusiasm.