Grouse. 6 9 



can. I remember, for instance, one time when we were 

 travelling along the valley of the Powder River, and got 

 entirely out of fresh meat, owing to my making a succes- 

 sion of ludicrously bad misses at deer. Having had my 

 faith in my capacity to kill any thing whatever with the 

 rifle a good deal shaken, I started off one morning on 

 horseback with the shot-gun. Until nearly noon I saw 

 nothing ; then, while riding through a barren-looking bot- 

 tom, I happened to spy some prairie fowl squatting close 

 to the ground underneath a sage-brush. It was some 

 minutes before I could make out what they were, they 

 kept so low and so quiet, and their color harmonized so 

 well with their surroundings. Finally I was convinced 

 that they were grouse, and rode my horse slowly by them. 

 When opposite, I reined him in and fired, killing the 

 whole bunch of five birds. Another time at the ranch our 

 supply of fresh meat gave out entirely, and I sallied forth 

 with the ranch gun, intent, not on sport, but on slaughter. 

 It was late fall, and as I rode along in the dawn (for the 

 sun was not up) a small pack of prairie fowl passed over 

 my head and lit on a dead tree that stood out some little 

 distance from a grove of cotton-woods. They paid little at- 

 tention to me, but they are so shy at that season that I did 

 not dare to try to approach them on foot, but let the horse 

 jog on at the regular cow-pony gait a kind of single-foot 

 pace, between a walk and a trot, and as I passed by fired 

 into the tree and killed four birds. Now, of course I 

 would not have dreamed of taking either of these shots had 

 I been out purely for sport, and neither needed any more 

 skill than would be shown in killing hens in a barn-yard ; 



