THE PINNATED GROUSE. 65 



nearly five hundred feet deep, some darkly blue 

 with deep shade, others filled with luminous 

 haze. With an air of profound wisdom, as if he 

 had taken the gauge of the whole situation, Prince 

 looked around at the party, then down the slope 

 into a swale where the white-fringed corolla of 

 the silene and the red lips of the snapdragon 

 kissed amid waving sunflowers, he went almost 

 out of sight, with the other dog following. Up 

 another slope he went with slower and slower 

 step among the tender blue of wild flax, and on 

 the top of the next ridge paused again to survey 

 the world. Along the hills the shining leaves of 

 the white birch were trembling on its white staff, 

 black oaks stood massed in ranks of green in the 

 heads of the gulches, on the points of the ridges 

 crags of sandstone like old-time castles hung over 

 the valleys, and miles away across the great bot- 

 tom of the Mississippi the Wisconsin bluffs lay 

 softly green in the clear air, with golden stubbles 

 creeping up their sides or gleaming amid the 

 timber that fringed their tops. But there was 

 no sign or sound of the game we had come for, 

 only the jingling notes of the jay as his blue 

 finery flashed among the deep green above us, 



