364 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



Bang-whang go two barrels of the guns almost to- 

 gether, a feather parts from the long, outspread fan 

 behind the booming wings, and in a second more the 

 brown streak fades among the distant trees. 



B-b-b-b-b goes another from almost the same place, 

 almost before the first one is out of sight, and bang 

 goes one barrel of each gun exactly together, and a 

 cloud of feathers floats from the downward whirling 

 bird, while with boisterous b-b-b-b-b seven or eight 

 more birds rise, curling, flashing, darting and whizzing 

 from the ferns in all directions. 



But Jack seems to have no anxiety about the birds 

 that have fallen, and after going cautiously a few steps 

 forward, stops again, with slowly waving tail. Care- 

 fully he moves along, sniffing daintily at the air on 

 high, and swinging off occasionally to one side so as 

 to catch the full breeze, then, as he advances a few 

 paces beyond where the other birds had risen, his limbs 

 and tail gradually stiffen, until he again becomes quite 

 rigid, with Frank, on the other side of the ravine, imi- 

 tating all his motions almost as accurately as if the 

 two were connected by an electric wire. 



As we come up to him he suddenly relaxes, moves 

 off a few yards to one side again, and then, with nose 

 high upraised and body sunk low in the grass, he 

 crawls forward a few feet, in shape more like an alli- 

 gator than a dog, and then comes again to a standstill. 

 As we advance a little in front of the dog three grouse 

 burst roaring from the ferns some twenty feet ahead 

 of us and dart away in different directions. One 



