A “game-hog” is a hunter of game who knows no such thing as sentiment or conscience in the killing of game, so long as he keeps within the limit of the law.  Regardless of the scarcity of game, or of its hard struggle for existence, he will kill right up to the bag limit every day that he goes out, provided it is possible to do so.  He uses the “law” as a salve for the spot where his conscience should be.  He will shoot with any machine gun, or gun of big calibre, in every way that the law allows, and he knows no such thing as giving the game a square deal.  He brags of his big bags of game, and he loves to be photographed with a wagon-load of dead birds as a background.  He believes in automatic and pump guns, spring shooting, longer open seasons and “more game.”  He is quite content to shoot half tame ducks in a club preserve as they fly between coop and pond, whenever he secures an opportunity.  He will gladly sell his game whenever he can do so without being found out, and sometimes when he is.

Often a true sportsman drifts without realizing it into some one way of the confirmed game-hog; but the moment he is made to realize his position, he changes his course and his standing.  The game-hog is impervious to argument.  You can shame a horse away from his oats more easily than you can shame him from doing “what the Law allows.”

There are hundreds of thousands of gentlemen and gentlewomen who never once have come in touch with real cloven-footed game-hogs, who do not understand the species at all, and do not recognize its ear-marks.  Thousands of such persons will tell you:  “In my opinion, the best way to save the wild life is to educate the people!” I have heard that, many, many times.

For right-hearted people, a little law is quite sufficient; and the best people need none at all!  But the game-hogs are different.  For them, the strict letter of the law, backed up by a strong-arm squad, is the only controlling influence that they recognize.  To them it is necessary to say:  “You shall!” and “You shall not!”

Only yesterday the latest game-hog case was related to me by a game-protector from Kansas.  Into a certain county of southern Kansas, from which the prairie-chicken had been totally gone for a dozen years or more, a pair of those birds entered, settled down and nested.  Their coming was to many habitants a joyous event.  “Now,” said the People, “we will care for these birds, and they will multiply, and presently the county will be restocked.”

But Ahab came!  Two men from another county, calling themselves sportsmen but not entitled to that name, heard of those birds, and resolved to “get them.”  They waited until the young were just leaving the nest:  and they went down and camped near by.  On the first day they killed the two parent birds and half the flock of young birds, and the next day they got all the rest.

But there is a sequel to this story.  One of those men was a dealer in guns and ammunition; and when his customers heard what he had done, “they simply put him out of business, by refusing to trade with him any more.”  He is now washing dirty dishes in a restaurant; but at heart he is a game-hog, just the same.