260 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



thought that Chicago was a failure, and were going back 

 East, or north to the more prosperous village of Mil- 

 waukee. But living was very cheap; the writer boarded 

 for 82 a week at the City Hotel, where venison, grouse, 

 ducks, and white-fish covered the board. So the more 

 hopeful of us concluded to stay and wait for better 

 times. 



There were three brothers of us, all living in Chicago, 

 and all fond of field sports, and as business was so dull 

 that one of us could easily look after the store, the 

 others could improve the great opportunities offered in 

 the way of shooting and fishing. 



I was then over thirty years old, and had been a 

 wanderer in many lands, and had been where game was 

 plentiful, but had never seen anything like the abundance 

 of fur and feather there was in JS^orthem Illinois. The 

 Sac and Fox Indians had been removed a few years before 

 from this region, which they naturally were unwilling to 

 leave, and all kinds of game had increased siace their 

 departure. 



The day after my arrival, my brother drove me out a 

 few miles to a farm where the prairie fowl abounded. 

 In summer they were found all over the prairies, but in 

 the fall they collected about the grain-fields. Our old 

 pointer, Phil, soon came to a poiat, and we left the wagon 

 with our guest; but when a flock of twenty or thirty 

 birds, as big as barn-door fowls, rose from the stubble 

 with a roar of wings, I stood bewildered. My brother, 

 however, brought down a bird with each barrel. They 

 fell on the sod, thump, and I picked up my first pinnated 

 grouse, a bird, in my estimation, at the head of American 

 game. To those accustomed to its noisy way of rising, 

 this bird is not difficult to kill, but I have known the 

 best Eastern shots, men who could cut down the ruffed 

 grouse as it dodged among the trees, or the snipe as it 



