
BRADLEY, FROM BAGGS 239 
he left me pretty much to the other hunters 
and was out of the hotel most of the evening. 
And what do you think? He was fixing it 
with the livery men so I couldn’t hire a rig! 
“T had the cook put me up my breakfast 
and my lunch that night, and some feed 
for the dog, and I was out in the hills the 
next morning before Gilder was out of bed, 
and by four o’clock I was back with seven 
grouse and only four misses to my discredit. 
T got all my birds that morning but one 
in the brush along the edge of a stubble- 
field. The odd one I got when I was just 
going to sit down on an old, moss-covered 
log to eat my lunch. There was a patch of 
berry briars at the other end of the log, and 
the dog went straight to it and hustled the 
old cock partridge out right when I was 
untying the lunch. Say, I dropped them 
sandwiches and grabbed up the gun so 
quick you couldn’t have seen me do it, 
but I had to shoot into the brush to stop 
‘my bird. Why, most every shot I made I 
wasn’t sure I hit till I found the bird, and 
me using smokeless shells, too. But wait. 
“That sly old fox of a Gilder shore had 
it framed up against me. Say, when I went 
into the kitchen to the cook for some meat 
for the dog that evening, she told me that 
same guide had gone with the Doctor in the 
morning, and she had to put up two lunches 
as well as feed for the dogs. She said that 
the Doctor had been swearing about one of 
the dogs getting lost—which I didn’t under- 
stand, his pointers being so well trained. 
“Gilder came in with eight birds that 
_ day, and you may be sure I knew what I 
had to do to save my gun. I didn’t say 
much about the shooting at supper, but 
tried to be as jolly as I could. And then, 
what should one of the other hunters do 
but ask me if I had seen anything of a little 
black dog! I answered that I had seen 
several, and wished to goodness some of 
them was some good. I said I believed I 
could get all the birds I could comfortably 
carry in a half hour in the morning if I 
only had a good dog. But, say, now who 
was it that was so anxious about that little 
dog? I had been careful to keep him out 
of sight and was confident that no one but 
the cook knew I had him. I had thought 
all along that I had merely picked up a 
stray, and I intended only to use him, and 
treat him well while I had him, and then 
leave him where I found him. But I now 
made up my mind I would be fortunate to 
do even that. 
“On Thursday morning I was in the 
woods before daylight, and I had the little 
dog with me, you can bet. And when I had 
bagged eight birds I hid them under some 
rocks and then I hunted up a road that ran 
south directly away from the grouse country 
and me and the dog hoofed it two miles 
down that sandy old road till we come to a 
house where it looked safe for me to leave 
the dog. I gave the woman a five-dollar 
bill and told her all I wanted was for her 
to keep the dog nights for me, and I would 
come for him early each morning the rest 
of the week. I said it was too far for him 
to walk to town—and it was. 
“Well, after that I had to hike those 
two miles out of my way to get the dog— 
I just had to, for I didn’t dare have any one 
who came in touch with the hunters know 
I had the dog. And furthermore, I had to 
get through my hunting early and be mighty 
scarce about it. I figured I was walking 
about fifteen or sixteen miles a day, and 
I just simply couldn’t shoot more than six 
or seven birds a day—it was too hard work 
going after the last ones when I had five or 
six in my pockets, and I daren’t hide them, 
for I wouldn’t been sure of finding them. 
You bet I wasn’t wasting my strength 
thrashing through the rhododendron laurels 
and the thick brush, not me. My little dog 
taught me I could find pretty near all the 
grouse I wanted hunting a sunshiny break- 
fast close to cover by sticking to the cow- 
paths and the little openings and the edges 
of the stubble fields. It was some chilli- 
some mornings, even if it was Indian 
summer. Occasionally I had to go into 
the ravines for my last couple of birds, 
but I never didif I could ‘avoid it, because 
it was'/too strenuous work and the shooting 
much}too hard. My stunt was to sneak 
along quietly down some old wood road or 
cow-path, where the cover was near and 
dense—not evergreen thickets, as I thought 
before I hunted any—and let the little dog 
do the rustling. There was one big patch 
of grapevine, on the edge of a little low, 
marshy place made by a little spring that 
seeped up somewhere, that I got nine 

