“ABOUT A BUSHEL.” A QUAIL STORY 143 
like stones. They were sensible birds. There were no 
straightaway shots. Not much. The quail had evi- 
dently studied out the situation and after that, every 
mother’s son—and daughter for that matter—when they 
did get up would rise, bursting with noise, and fly from 
left to right behind me. They may be easy for you 
but these shots are rotten hard for me. Instead of 
getting a record morning I only bagged one lone bushel 
and that isn’t so very many, twenty birds, considering 
the shooting I had. The fact is I missed Dad’s double 
gun and his good straight shooting behind it. 
When the shooting is good, lunch time comes all too 
quickly. A little brook on the edge of the meadow, a 
large flat rock, and we three sat down besideit. Iknew 
Ted and Box thought the lunch unfairly divided. Pos- 
sibly I did eat more than my share. You can’t please 
everybody, at least I can’t. After lunch I noticed two 
young men sitting on the top rail of the fence on the 
opposite side of the meadow. 
I walked over to speak to them. Just as I left the 
briar patch and entered the meadow, two jack rabbits 
jumped in front of me and raced away. I made a 
double shot on them and both tumbled head over heels. 
Picking them up I walked over to where the two men 
were sitting. Getting nearer I saw they were Indians 
with painted cheeks, feathers in hair and blankets over 
their shoulders. They were evidently waiting to see 
me shoot. It might please them to give them the rab- 
bits, so bowing and holding out the rabbits toward 
them I said with my best Indian accent: 
‘‘How? Heap eat.”’ 
‘‘Oh, hell!’ said one of the Indians, “‘if I couldn’t 
speak better English than that I wouldn’t talk at all.” 
They were graduates of a celebrated Indian school. 
