i 3 o HUNTING TRIPS 



without rousing any thing; happening to 

 look back when I had gone some fifty 

 yards, I was surprised to see a dozen heads 

 and necks stretched up, and eying me most 

 inquisitively; their owners were sharp-tails, 

 a covey of which I had almost walked over 

 without their making a sign. I strode back ; 

 but at my first step 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 scat- 

 tering 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 



