190 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 
were spread out below us extended in another direction 
like an endless emerald ocean. 
I gazed upon this landscape with a mingled feeling of 
oppressive awe and serene rapture, and I do not know 
how long I would have continued it, had not one of my 
companions given a whistle, to attract my attention. On 
looking around, I saw him pointing to some white-tailed 
ptarmigans that were walking along the edge of the 
alpine shrubbery beneath us. This pleasant sight made 
me forget the scenery in a moment, so I descended to 
where the birds were feeding and attempted to flush a 
small pack which were trying to hide in a low thicket, 
but my efforts proved futile, for the more I tried to rout 
them the harder they ran and skulked. Seeing that they 
would not rise, my red-headed friend shouted to the 
“hound dog:” ‘‘ Hi at ’em!” and that animal dashed at 
them, loudly barking. He flushed the greater number, 
but they had scarcely begun to ply their pinions before 
five of them fell before the barrels of our guns. 
The Venus-haired man, who was known as Jabe, sug- 
gested the routing of the others. I agreed, so we com- 
menced beating the shrubbery in a methodical manner 
and ‘‘shooing,” but the more we ‘‘ shood” the more the 
birds skulked and tried to conceal themselves, some of 
them running around the clumps of miniature shrubbery 
much as a wood-pecker would go round a tree. Being 
unable to follow them through the thicket, I fired at the 
head of one which I saw dodging about the center of a 
bush and bagged it, as ] wished to secure it asa speci- 
men. My feelings reprimanded me severely for this bit 
of vandalism, but I learned that my companion had no 
compunctions of conscience about shooting birds on the 
ground, his excuse being that if they would not rise 
when he wisned, he was content to kill them in the posi- 
tion they liked best. He bagged two of the skulkers, 
and his comrade three. These lirds, except my speci- 
