SOME HOGS HAVE A “HEN” HUNT IN SOUTH DAKOTA. 
S. 
The evening of September 15, 1894, was 
the date on which we 4 conspirators met 
in Suffolk’s drugstore and planned the 
route and the other details of our next 
day’s shoot. We had hunted together 
7 or 8 years, and understood what we 
wanted and what we did not want; so it did 
not take us long to make our plan of 
campaign. The only question that ever 
arose on which we had any argument was 
which dogs to take and which to leave at 
home. Between us we owned a long 
string of them aid debate sometimes 
waxed warm when this question came up; 
especially when Berkshire insisted on tak- 
ing “Pete,” a Siberian wolf hound, which 
he insisted was a Sefton pointer, and 
whom the readers of RECREATION already 
know. We had each had a seance with 
“Pete,” so we knéw he was a first class 
sheep dog and that his sole ambition was 
to see how many sheep throats he could 
cut in the time it took him to run a bunch 
across a 160 acre pasture. The bristles 
would stick up on Berkshire’s back when- 
ever the word sheep was mentioned and 
we always consoled him by saying Pete 
was too good a dog to be hunted on the 
prairie and that if he would agree not to 
run him any more we would some day 
raise a litter of world beaters from him 
and give B. one. This always satisfied 
Berkshire, and Pete was left at home. 
The next morning, long before day- 
light, we were on the road with a splen- 
did shooting outfit belonging to Scrub 
Hog. It consisted of a 3-seated wagon, 
with an extra long box for the accommo- 
dation of dogs and game, and a fast 
road team well broken to gun and shoot- 
ing affairs. For the day’s shoot we had 
selected 5 of our best dogs, “Mike,” 
Bess tanhic ee Macks eandamsobaemeclll 
pointers, and, with the exception of Bob, 
all to be depended on for ahard day’s work. 
Mike was a fast, well-broken dog with 
great ambition and staying power; Mack 
an excellent dog in the wrong hands; 
Bess was a putterer, much given to 
grand-stand plays and sensational points, 
but the best one in the string for corn 
fields and tree claims. 
Poor Bob was one of those well-mean- 
ing dogs always in the wrong place at 
the wrong time; always on the go, with 
an attraction for misfortune that I have 
never seen equaled in man or beast: We 
always liked to have Bob with us, for we 
248 
Mle 
never knew what he was going to do next 
and there could never be any monotony 
where he was. Last, but by no means 
least, was Fan, the queen of all dogs. I 
have shot hundreds, I think I might say 
thousands, of birds over her, and never 
saw her make a mistake. I am an old 
dog man and you know what and how 
much that statement means. 
We had decided to hunt over a stretch 
of country about 10 miles from the town 
of M so we had plenty of time to 
plan the minor details of the day’s sport. 
When about 4 miles out we were over- 
taken by a hard rain which was over- 
thing but comfortable for us in our light 
summer shooting clothes, but we consoled 
ourselves with the thought that it bid fair 
to be a cool day and that the birds would 
lie much better on account of the rain. 
Shote, who was holding down the front 
seat and navigating the outfit, had some 
ideas of his own as to the proper road 
to take, and lost us about an hour’s shoot- 
ing by getting on the wrong road and into 
the intricacies of E creek. How- 
ever, we at last re.ched the ground and 
Mike and Mack were started on a large 
stubble. Mike soon found birds and 
Mack backed from the other side of 
the field. Suffolk and Scrub Hog were 
delegated to do the shooting and Berk- 
shire and Poland China sat in the wagon 
and watched the proceedings. The birds 
were big and strong, made fine shooting 
and the bunch was well cleaned up by 
the time the last shot was fired. Mack 
did not come up at the shooting, so Po- 
land China went over to him to see what 
was the matter and found: him with a 
bunch of his own, out of which P. C. 
got some good sport «and did some 
splendid snap shooting. Of course when 
we got back to the wagon Berkshire had 
to tell us what he would have done if he 
had been out with us, but we were used 
to him and paid no attention. What Po- 
land China had left of Mack’s birds only 
flew a short distance; so Berkshire took 
Bess and went after them. We watched 
him miss the first 3 birds and then kill 
the rest of the bunch without a miss; and 
when he got back we had to listen to 
the old story of Bess not working right 
and that if he had only had Pete he would 
have cleaned up the whole outfit. 
We then divided up. Suffolk took 
Bob and Mike about a half mile farther 


