90 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



disinclined to move. There must have been a good 

 many score of them scattered in bunches among 

 the cedars, and as I walked along I put up a covey 

 or a single bird every two or three hundred yards. 

 They were always started when I was close up to 

 them, and the nature of the place made them offer 

 excellent shots as they went off, while when killed 

 they dropped down on the snow-covered canyon 

 bottom where they could be easily recovered on my 

 walk home. When the sharp-tails had once left the 

 canyon they scattered among the broken buttes. I 

 tried to creep up to one or two, but they were fully 

 as wild and watchful as deer, and would not let 

 me come within a hundred yards of them; so I 

 turned back, climbed down into the canyon, and 

 walked homeward through it, picking up nine birds 

 on the way, the result of a little over an hour's 

 shooting. Most of them were dead outright; and 

 the two or three who had been only wounded were 

 easily followed by the tracks they made in the tell- 

 tale snow. 



Most of the prairie fowl I have killed, however, 

 have not been obtained in the course of a day or 

 an afternoon regularly spent after them for the 

 sake of the sport, but have simply been shot with 

 whatever weapon came handy, because we actually 

 needed them for immediate use. On more than 

 one occasion I would have gone supperless or din- 

 nerless had it not been for some of these grouse; 

 and one such instance I will give. 



One November, about the middle of the month, 



