A Day with the Grouse. 123 



His tail straight out : every muscle rigid : 

 and his right foot lifted from the ground. 

 Belle, seeing that he had found a bird, 

 bounded up so hurriedly that the grouse 

 rushed out and disappeared behind a pine 

 before we could shoot. Out from under 

 a scrub-oak went another grouse, and 

 neither of the guns happened to be ready, 

 It was necessary to call Belle in and 

 scold her for being so careless, and her 

 drooping ears and tail showed that her 

 feelings were hurt more than they would 

 have been if we had punished her. The 

 direction that one of the birds had taken 

 led us out to a sumac thicket on a knoll. 

 Both dogs were making signs of game and 

 trying to locate the birds, when suddenly 

 out of the ferns at my very feet burst a 

 great gray cock grouse and sprang whir- 

 ring into the air, shaking the saplings with 

 his wings and whisking a circle of loose 

 dead leaves into the air of his wake. 

 The instant that the gun-stock struck my 

 shoulder and the trigger was simultane- 

 ously and intuitively pulled, the feath- 

 ers flew in a puff, the powerful bird 



