Mr. Duvall usta ride a blazed-face, sarl [HW:  sorrel] mare named Kit.  He most al’ays taken me up behind him, ‘specially if he was goin’ to town.  Kit was trained to hunt deer.  I can’t remember any deer in the country but Mr. Duvall yousta tell me ’bout ’em an ’bout the way they had their hawses trained.  He said there wus a place down on Panther Lick Creek, below where we lived, that was a deer lick.  The deer would come there and lick the ground close to the creek because there was salt left there by the high waters.  He’d put a strap with a littel bell on ’round ole Kit’s neck; an’ tie her to a tree not far from this lick.  Then he’d hide behin’ ’nother tree close to Kit.  When the deer come ole Kit’d shake her head an’ the deer would raise their heads to see what the noise made by the bell was an’ where it was comin’ from.  Then he’d shoot the deer in the head.  He showed me the place where he killed the biggest buck he ever seen right here jess out o’ town a little ways.  He kept the horns.  An’ I remember seein’ ’em in the attic at his house.  He had an ole riffle he called “Ole Betsy” that’d been his deer rifle.

After I got to be a big boy, huntin’ and fishin’ was good.  I never got to do any uv it except on Saturdays and Sundays.  Everbody had a brush fence ‘round the house to keep the stock in out o’ the yard and one day I seen a big bird sail down on the fence and run under it.  Mother was out in the back yard so I said to myself, I’ll get the gun and kill that hawk.  I taken good aim at its head and banged away.  At the crack o’ the gun I never heard such a flutterin’ in my life.  Mother come runnin’ to see what was the matter and when she seen it, she said, Son, that’s a pheasant.  Some day you’ll be a good hunter.  An’ guess I was for I killed lots o’ pheasants, quail, squir’ls and rabbits.

Little Sammy Duvall had a pointer he called “Quail”.  She was the smartest dog I ever seen, but everybody had smart dogs them days.  Quail’d trail birds when they was runnin’ till she got clost and then circle ’round ’em an’ make her stand.

Be careful there, Quail, Mr. Sammy would say.  He’d nearly always get eight or ten out uv a covey an’ sometimes the whole covey.  I yousta go along jess to see him shoot.  He hardly ever missed.  There was so many quail that nobody ever thought to leave any uv a covey if he wanted that many an’ they didn’t get so scattered that he couldn’t fin’ em.

After the deer was all killed out, people trained their deer hounds to chase foxes, coons and such like.  The white boys from town yousta come and get Will and young Sammy to go coon huntin’.  They al’ays had ten or twelve dogs.  They al’ays taken me along an’ treated me jest the same as if I was as white as they was.  If I got behind or out o’ sight somebody was sure to say, ‘Where’s George’?