Grouse. 87 



very staunch and careful, never flushing a bird, while the 

 puppy, from pure heedlessness, and with the best inten- 

 tions, would sometimes bounce into the midst of a covey 

 before he knew of their presence. On the other hand, he 

 covered twice the ground that the pointer did. The 

 actual killing the birds was a good deal like quail shoot- 

 ing in the East, except that it was easier, the marks being 

 so much larger. When we came to a field we would beat 

 through it a hundred yards apart, the dogs ranging in 

 long diagonals. When either the setter or the pointer 

 came to a stand, the other generally backed him. If the 

 covey was near enough, both of us, otherwise, whichever 

 was closest, walked cautiously up. The grouse generally 

 flushed before we came up to the dog, rising all together, 

 so as to give only a right and left. 



When the morning was well advanced the grouse left 

 the stubble fields and flew into the adjoining prairie. We 

 marked down several coveys into one spot, where the 

 ground was rolling and there were here and there a few 

 bushes in the hollows. Carefully hunting over this, we 

 found two or three coveys and had excellent sport out 

 of each. The sharp-tails in these places lay very close, 

 and we had to walk them up, when they rose one at 

 a time, and thus allowed us shot after shot ; whereas, 

 as already said, earlier in the day we merely got 

 a quick right and left at each covey. At least half 

 the time we were shooting in our rubber overcoats, as 

 the weather was cloudy and there were frequent flurries 

 of rain. 



We rested a couple of hours at noon for lunch, and 



