THE ENGLISH SETTER 271 



made a great pet of, and was nearly always his constant companion. 

 Not having another dog, he taught her to retrieve, which she would 

 do perfectly both by land and water. For the ordinary prairie 

 chicken and willow grouse work she became very perfect, and was 

 so untiring that she would frequently accompany him on his rides 

 of sixty to eighty miles, ranging the prairies for long distances while 

 his horse pursued his even course along " the trail." The writer 

 always carried a gun strapped to the saddle in a thick cover, and 

 his saddle-bags were often full of game when he arrived at his 

 destination. 



One evening he was returning home after a long, wearying ride, 

 and it was just getting dusk when he missed the dog. He whistled 

 for some time and was getting uneasy, when she appeared, in a great 

 hurry. He was riding on, when she ran in front of the horse, and 

 stood pointing dead at him. He pulled up and said, " What's up, old 

 girl ? Go on and tell me." She raced back in great glee, and, pointing 

 at intervals to let him keep up, went back along the trail for a quarter 

 of a mile, and then going into some bush on the right, stood like a 

 statue. He was off in a moment, got a right and left at a lot of 

 chickens, marked the rest down, luckily on the road home, and 

 got six more of them to single points. Ever after that she never 

 failed to carry out the plan that she had invented and had found 

 so successful. She would range away a mile or more out of sight 

 as her master was travelling, suddenly appear, in a great hurry, and 

 then lead him back to some game she had found and left in order 

 to fetch him. She would do more than this. Prairie chicken very 

 frequently lie in belts of a willow called cotton-wood, and it is very 

 difficult, if one is alone, to get a shot at them. This dog, after making 

 a point in a place of this sort, would turn round, sit down, and look 

 at her master ; having thus indicated what to expect, she would 

 make a wide circuit in the wood and get in front of the birds, which 

 usually run away from a dog, quietly and calmly like turkeys, she 

 would head them, "round them up "when they required it, and, 

 pointing and drawing, would drive them quietly out exactly to the 

 spot where her master was concealed. She very often got the whole 

 lot thus into the open, and then would stand and look round for 

 him ; thus, of course, it was easy to get one's shot and very often to 

 mark the covey down again. It did not, however, much matter about 

 this latter, as if she once knew the direction which birds had taken, 

 she was bound to find them again if you would let her, as she would 

 go on hunting for miles in wide circles till she did. 



She got cleverer and cleverer at this game as time went on, 

 until at last she became the most " killing " dog to shoot to that 

 it was possible to have. 



The following incident in her career corroborated to a great 

 extent a favourite theory that the writer has long held viz. that 



