On a mixed-bag hunt in Nebraska, Bob (who'd never hunted squirrels before) shot a squirrel that was inside the hollow stub of a cottonwood limb, looking out at us. Bob expected the squirrel to kick forward in a death spasm and thus kick itself out of the limb stub. But the squirrel just scrunched-up into a ball and died � still inside the limb stub, which was too high to reach with anything that we could find to reach with.
The crotch of that old cottonwood � the first thing to offer any help to a climber � was too high for anything that we could find to stand on. I laced my fingers together to give Bob a step up.
Not high enough.
"Stand on my shoulders," I said. Bob stood on my shoulders.
Not high enough.
"Stand on my head."
"Wearing these waffle-stompers? No way!"
"Go ahead. Just don't dance around up there." So he stood on my ol' bald head.
Just barely high enough for Bob to jump up and get a-hold of a grip that let him haul himself up to the crotch. From there, he was able to climb up to the limb stub and get his squirrel.
He said afterward that the experience proved to him that some editors could be useful, after all, and for years (for the rest of his life, I suspect), he jumped gleefully at every opportunity to tell of how he'd been able to get his dead squirrel out of that tree.
Our hunting partner Hal Swiggett photographed the editor being useful, but he never sent me the print that he promised me. I don't remember where our other partner (Bill Jordan) was off to, at the time. He would've been a taller pedestal than I was.
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