86 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



they all stood up straight, with their absurd little 

 tails held up in the air, and at the next step away 

 they went, flying off a quarter of a mile and then 

 scattering in the brushy hollows where a coulie 

 headed up into the buttes. (Grouse at this season 

 hardly ever light in a tree.) I marked them down 

 carefully and tramped all through the place, yet I 

 only succeeded in putting up two, of which I got one 

 and missed the other with both barrels. After that 

 I walked across the heads of the coulies, but saw 

 nothing except in a small swale of high grass, where 

 there was a little covey of five, of which I got two 

 with a right and left. It was now very hot, and I 

 made for a spring which I knew ran out of a cliff 

 a mile or two off. There I stayed till long after the 

 shadows began to lengthen, when I started home 

 ward. For some miles I saw nothing, but as the 

 evening came on the grouse began to stir. A small 

 party flew over my head, and though I missed them 

 with both barrels, either because I miscalculated the 

 distance or for some other reason, yet I marked 

 them down very well, and when I put them up again 

 got two. Three times afterward I came across 

 coveys, either flying or walking out from the edges 

 of the brushes, and I got one bird out of each, 

 reaching home just after sunset with fifteen sharp- 

 tails strung over my back. Of course working after 

 grouse on an August day in this manner, without a 

 dog, is very tiring, and no great bag can be made 

 without a pointer or setter. 



In September the sharp-tails begin to come out 



