442 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 24, it$4. 
HOW THE SEASON OPENED. 
Well, Nov. 1 came at last, and the open season was 
upon us. The day dawned cloudless and just cool enough 
to be pleasant. The party consisted of the Skipper, who 
hurt the scales about 286 lbs. when he climbed upon them 
for weighing purposes, the Clerk, supposed to be a Nim- 
rod, but who, from his attenuated appearance, was called 
"Ramrod," and the Marine, who is a mighty hunter. 
Paris Island was the place, on the South Carolina coast, 
and the country just back of the Naval Station was pop- 
ularly supposed to be full of snipe, and partridges, which 
further north would prove to be our old friend Bob 
White. 
Notwithstanding his avoirdupois, the Skipper was ardent 
and enthusiastic. The Government mule was ordered to 
be at the door at 6:30 A. M., and after coffee and a light 
breakfast the party prepared to start. The Skipper was 
gallantly clad in an old gray suit, with his old shooting 
coat over that, sleeveless, as all shooting coats should be, 
with many pockets. His nether limbs were covered by 
long-legged rubber boots (recently built and launched by 
the Goodyear Rubber Company) measuring 22in. at the 
calf, to give entrance to the mighty limbs of the com- 
mander. The equipage was a two-seated wagon, called a 
"Democrat" here, which is appropriate, for Republicans 
are marked with a minus sign in these parts. There 
were two dogs; Bob, a liver and white pointer, knew his 
business well, but was slightly deaf ; the other, more liver 
than white, was young, ardent and indiscreet. 
The first act of the drama was to boost the mighty 
Skipper into the wagon. Scott, the colored driver, stood 
at the head of the mule so as to brace him up in case the 
whole menagerie showed signs of capsizing. The Clerk 
and the Marine took up advantageous positions, and with 
a "long heave, a strong heave and a heave all together," 
the ascent was accomplished, but the poor old Democrat 
was fearfully "down by the stern." 
Then the rest of the party embarked, and the caravan 
began to move. The sun was just rising over the distant 
sea. The air was delightfully clear, and the heavy dew 
caused a charming fragrance to pervade it, and the dogs 
frisked about the party as the mild-mannered mule paced 
sedately through the cotton fields toward the grassy re- 
treats, where the snipe most abounded and the partridge 
hid his plumage. 
About a mile from the station old Bob came to a beau- 
tiful point at the side of the road, his hindquarters and 
tail visible in the grass and his nose steadfastly set 
toward a low piece with high grass and straggling trees 
about it. Subdued excitement at once pervaded the 
party. The Skipper extricated his feet from the vehicle, 
and when they were pointed just right, tobogganed to 
the ground in great shape. Guns were grasped, cartridges 
shoved in, and when all were ready, old Bob was "hied 
on" and in two minutes up jumped Mr. Snipe, and the 
Skipper's gun spoke out and down tumbled the bird. 
This seemed a good beginning. While the Skipper was 
putting another shell into his gun and mildly chuckling 
over the first bird, Mr. Ramrod, who was on the right, 
remarked in hesitating accents, "Was that your bird, 
sir?" 
Now, history repeats itself. Many long years ago the 
Skipper and two companions landed at early daylight at 
Maldonado, at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, to shoot 
partridges. As they tramped through the sleeping village, 
bound for the stubble fields beyond, many dogs greeted 
them with waggish, doggy smiles, and jumped about, and 
they wanted very much to go with those guns. The gun- 
ners were afterward assured that every cur of them all 
would point, retrieve and do anything else with great 
earnestness and ability in the field; but as sailors have 
little sense on shore, they sternly repulsed the canine ad- 
vances, and trusted to the retrieving qualities of David 
Johnson, a mild-mannered darky wardroom boy. Con- 
sequence, about half the birds shot were lost; but the party 
picked up twenty-eight fine partridges — noble, great 
birds — in a couple of hours, Now on this occasion, while 
beating across a stubble field, a bird rose fair in front 
and the Skipper tumbled him over in finestyle, apparently. 
"That's the way to knock 'em over," remarked the Skip- 
per, as he proceeded to reload. "What's the way?" said 
the gallant officer on the left. "I killed that bird." "Not 
much you didn't," said the Skipper; "I did it with my lit- 
tle gun." Both parties were powerful disputants, and the 
surrounding country rang with their assertions, each in- 
sisting that he alone had shot and that the other had not, 
while the cynical Surgeon on the right grinned sarcasti- 
cally, and much enjoyed the dispute. Being ultimately 
appealed to, he declared that both had tired simultane- 
ously, and to this day no man knoweth who killed that 
bird. 
Having a vivid recollection of this episode, when the 
Ramrod man hazarded his mild inquiry, the Skipper 
blandly asked, "Did you shoot?" "Yes, sir," was the 
answer, and here is another riddle to rattle down the ages 
of the future, alas! unsolved. The Marine tried to be 
loyal to the Commander, and insisted that he saw the 
bird tumble in the right direction to be killed by the 
Skipper's gun, while the Clerk mildly pointed out that 
the bird was wounded on the starboard side, which would 
seem to be in his line of fire. As one bird would not go 
far to satisfy the hunger of three ravenous and healthy 
daughters, the Skipper renounced his claim to the bird, 
which slipped into the pocket of the Ramrod man. 
Two or three more birds were flushed in that spot, but 
no more were bagged, so the derrick was again rigged, 
and the Democrat loaded down by the stern once more. 
After proceeding a couple of miles further toward Broad 
River, the Marine proposed to try a likely piece of ground 
for partridges, while the others of the party remained in 
the wagon, to come at his call. Nearly on the margin of 
Broad River, where a thicket overlooked the stream, lo! 
the soldier raised his hand and beckoned, and the others 
started for him, across cotton and cornfields. Old Bob 
was at a dead point. To reach him it was necessary to 
struggle through enlaced vines as high as the waist, and 
very tough. It was a hard battle. The Skipper puffed 
and perspired, and his mighty heart pumped like 
an engine. Suddenly up they rose with a rush-two-three- 
four, and the air seemed full of feathers. Ramrod scored 
one; the Skipper and Marine missed. There were certain 
to be more birds in the bushes. The Marine entered to 
beat through and kept singing out to the Skipper to work 
in close to the edge of the busheB. Now, to work about 
3001bs. of man, gun, and ammunition through an en- 
tangled maze of blackberry-vines, bushes and tough grass, 
reaching as high as the waist, is no slight exertion, espe- 
cially when the man-power of it all is soft and flabby, 
and easily fatigued after long years of sedentary life; but 
the soul is strong and fearless and will undertake much, 
even though the flesh is weak. The Skipper plunged 
ahead in an elephantine way, but his panting must have 
been like unto the panting of a Mississippi steamboat 
(with one of which the Skipper once pursued and killed a 
great deer in midstream where Arkansas and Tennessee 
face each other across the Father of Waters — "but that's 
another story" as Kipling says) and probably all the quail, 
were intimidated thereat. At last one frightened bird 
jumped up at his feet to avoid being trodden on, and 
sailed away over the land, while the Skipper wildly pulled 
the lock that was not cocked, and missed the bird when 
he found the right one. I am afraid at this point some 
language was used. The Ramrod man and the Marine 
were respectfully reassuring in their remarks, but the 
Skipper probably felt that they judged that his frantic 
attempts to drive the birds off the ground would be mildly 
successful later on. 
The party emerged on to the Sandy River beach, and 
the Skipper opened his safety-valve, and tried to reduce 
steam to a safe pressure, and get his breathing engine 
into such shape that it would be useful again. It took 
some time. He was tired and sore from his unaccus- 
tomed exertions, saturated with perspiration, and was 
conscious of a longing for the old mule and the sybaritic 
comfort of the wagon seats. It is very probable that he 
was disgusted at his bad luck, or marksmanship, and 
that he did not consider quail and snipe very desirable 
birds, anyhow. 
At last he rose, and started to find an easy place to 
scale the bank, and so to reach that heavenly mule. 
Having gone perhaps a hundred feet along the shore, and 
seeing a place to get up, a commotion at his feet excited 
his attention, and after a wild struggle, another quail 
took wing, nearly knocking the Skipper's hat off, and 
followed by a wild shot from the left barrel, which 
frightened the bird into the trajectory of the Marine, 
who promptly killed it and put it into his bag. The tired 
Skipper felt that his education had been neglected, inas- 
much as he could find no language to express his feelings 
on this occasion, so he struggled again through the 
tangled vines to the carriage, unloaded his gun, lighted 
his pipe, climbed laboriously into the wagon and was 
carted home. 
Then the other men ate some lunch in the shade of a 
tree, rested and fed the dogs, and began to hunt. 
The Skipper was pretty badly used up. He is supposed 
to have wasted about 201bs. of avoirdupois during the 
expedition, but, although his flesh failed, yet his spirit is 
still undaunted, and he has heard of a pond on St. Helena 
Island where marsh hens, teal and other "little divin' 
fowls" fly in, and he has planned to seat himself comfort- 
ably on the banks of that pond, on an old box carried for 
the purpose, and if any adventurous birds come in range, 
slaughter will surely intervene. When that trip is over, 
I will try to give you the Skipper's further adventures for 
your old sporting paper. C. H. Rockwell. 
Naval Station, Port Royal, S. C, Nov. 5. 
A DAY WITH THE OLD DOG. 
Last Saturday was opening day for quail in Indiana, 
but it was anything else than an ideal autumn day. An 
inch of wet snow had fallen the night before, and stuck 
to everything it touched. The ground was covered, and 
every weed, bush and fence was wreathed in fleecy white, 
cold and wet, ready to drop at a touch. The sky was 
covered with gray clouds, and a northwest wind hunted 
the thin spots in the clothing of those who were out. It 
was much better weather for hunting quail at the grocer's 
than in the field, but as it was probably the only day I 
would have for the sport this year, it was decided to go. 
Just across the road from the house is a 12-acre stubble, 
in which a covey of 14 had been seen only the day 
before, and right there old Joe and I went, I told Joe 
that it was doubtful if he proved good for much, for he 
was too fat and out of practice, for he had had no work for 
two years except on 24 quail last year, and he was getting 
too old, anyway. But Joe gave me to understand by 
whines and barks that he was going to do his level best, 
and cut a lot of capers to show that he was still as active 
as ever. Over the fence and into the weedy stubble he 
went, raced once around the field with high head and 
waving tail, then selecting the likeliest portions of the 
field, began a systematic hunt for the birds he had seen 
the day before and wondered why I did not shoot at 
them. Presently he came back to me, wanting to know 
why he could not find them to-day. I told him they had 
not come off the roost yet and were hard to find, so to go 
in and hunt them again, and he hunted them half an hour 
longer, but could not find them. 
Thinking the storm might have made them go to the 
woods to roost, we left the field and went through a ten- 
acre clearing that cornered with the field. It was an ideal 
place for quail to fly to when disturbed, but otherwise 
none were likely to be found in it. Meanwhile guns were 
heard in several directions, and Joe and I began to feel 
that we ought to be getting something; but we didn't get 
a thing in the clearing, and started for another stubble, 
going along a bushy fence row between two fields of 
standing corn. Sixty rods down this fence I saw tracks — 
quail tracks — twelve of them; the most cheering sight the 
sportsman ever sees, except the sight of the birds them- 
selves. I called Joe to me; he caught the pcent at once 
and began to follow it. As he crawled after them with 
outstretched neck and nose and straight-extended tail, 
with legs bent till his body almost touched the ground, he 
looked nearly twice his actual length. Here was an oppor- 
tunity to see just how he did it, as the bird tracks showed 
just where the trail was. Joe paid no attention to the 
footprints in the snow, probably did not know what they 
were; but got on the windward side of them, keeping a 
rod or more away from the trail, and every few rods stop- 
ping and smelling carefully, feeling, as it were, for the 
body scent. Once, when the birds had made a sharp 
curve toward the side Joe traveled on, he crossed the trail, 
and of course lost the scent; but instead of going forward 
to find it, he went back, and took it up two rods of where 
he crossed it. After the birds had turned they were going 
right with the wind, and here Joe crawled right on their 
tracks, because otherwise he could not smell them. Here 
he crawled along with extreme caution, stopping every 
few feet and looking back at me, as though to say, "Be 
ready for them. I can't get the body scent when they are 
going right with the wind. " Presently the trail turned to 
the left, which brought it across the wind once more, 
which Joe soon discovered, and leaving the trail he trav- 
eled another half circle of 50yds., coming back against the 
wind and working for the body scent. He found it this 
time, and as I came to him he rolled his eye back to see 
what I was doing, and I imagined he winked at me. 
When the birds go up, one was killed and lay fluttering 
in plain sight of Joe. but he did not break. So much for 
thorough discipline in his puppy days. 
The birds were marked down in the clearing we had 
come through, and once there Joe and I had a barrel of 
fun with them. By 10 o'clock we had eight and could 
find no more, so started to the house, going through the 
stubble again, and this time Joe found that covey we had 
not found in the early morning. They were still on their 
roost, dreading to put their feet in the cold snow. These 
birds went to the clearing too, and we had lots of fun 
with them till the cartridges were all gone. You see we 
only took twenty-eight for fear we might kill too many 
birds. The twenty-eight cartridges bagged just fourteen 
quail, and that was all we needed. 
Winston Harris came over to see me about some birds 
on his farm and after dinner we went to get them but 
could not find them, and only got six during the after- 
noon. Winston said the quail reminded him of some 
great fly-fishing in which he used live quail for flies, but 
he would not tell me about it until I had promised it 
would not get into Forest and Stream. Then he told 
the following: 
"In 1847 I was living at Boonville on the Missouri 
River. Right opposite the town was a big bend, making 
half a circle four or five miles across. That fall there 
came hundreds of thousands of quail, traveling south, and 
when they struck the river they followed it till they came 
into the hollow of the big bend and then flew across, but 
as it was a mile, a good many of the weaker ones fell into 
the river, and those that got across were so tired that 
people just picked up all they wanted of them. There 
was several acres of very deep water in the bend and 
there were a good many big catfish in there that never 
Would bite at any sort of bait. Well, these catfish gnt to 
snapping up every quail that fell into the water, so I got 
the blacksmith to make me a hook, got 200ft. of clothes- 
line at the store, and tying a live quail to the hook threw 
it away out in the river, and something took it right off, 
and it would have taken me too, if the boys hadn't 
grabbed the line and helped. We pulled out a catfish that 
weighed 1871bs. strong, and he had nearly a bushel of 
quail in him. We thought we were going to have any 
amount of fun now, but the next morning o>ad catfish 
began to come to the top of the water and float down 
"What killed them?" I asked. 
"Killed themselves trying to eat thirty quail in thirty 
days," said Winston. O. H. Hampton, 
GROUSE AND MEN. 
Sitting by a warm cheerful fire on a cold night reading 
a book about the grouse, I heard the sweet strains of our 
fifty-year-old piano (just tuned for the hundredth time) 
playing "Woodland Echoes." I had heard both many 
times before, but never before with so keen a sense of 
appreciation, for I had returned but a short time before 
from my first hunt after grouse. 
Away up in Monroe county, Pa., near the Pike county 
line, I had spent some days in the woods, on the hillsides, 
in the swales, breathing the mountain air, drinking from 
mountain brooks. There seems to me to be no place on 
earth where one can so effectually shut out the cares of 
this life and business anxiety, as in those mountains and 
sunny swales. It's the place to get nature's own remedy 
without the quack doctor accompaniment. My errand, 
however, was not entirely in search of health. A plow 
horse needs rest occasionally. I went grouse shooting, 
and as the old piano repeated "Woodland Echoes," I re- 
called, as I remember now, that first grouse hunt. 
I left New York one bright day in October, with my 
newly purchased English setter dog, warranted to point 
grouse at 1,000yds., and retrieve from one county to 
another. At Mammkachunk I was joined by my com- 
panion of the trundle bed, the country school pard, the 
twin in all mischief and subsequent thrashing bees, my 
reverend brother. He, too, had a dog borrowed of a New 
Jersey farmer. Fannie's only experience in hills I am 
sure had been in a sweet potato patch. My dog Ned had 
seen hills before and didn't like them; but I am dead sure 
he had never seen a grouse. Neither had I — except the 
product of the pot-hunter in the market places on Barclay 
street. 
At Mt. Pocono we went into camp in a deserted cottage, 
built exclusively for summer purposes. The first morn- 
ing we successfully took our bath out of the second story 
window, from a pipe that ran up on the outside. We 
didn't do it any more. The pipe froze up, We built 
fires, cooked our meals (and the Doctor was an excellent 
cook), made beds, washed dishes (before we left) and 
hunted. Hunted dogs and grouse. Time can never erase 
from my memory the whir of those Nancy Hanksee of 
the air. For cunning, they could give politicians points. 
The embarrassment of those green .dogs helped me out 
considerably. The Doctor, however, began to bring them 
down, having been there before — many a time. He also 
got Fannie down to doing some very good work. Ned 
proved to be a great retriever, when there was anything 
to retrieve. I flushed as many as six birds before getting 
my gun off at all. They were so different from a New 
Jersey cotton-tail, that they unnerved me. However, I 
began to shoot on general principle. It was hard on the 
timber, but when timber land is only worth a dollar an 
acre, I didn't mind. In three days I had eleven birds (all 
grouse), six lectures caused in getting up after falling 
down (I always fell near the Doctor), a played out dog, 
and a pain from head to foot, besides a heap of practical 
experience. I have never yet told how I got those birds, 
and the Doctor never told but once; but for the benefit of 
aspirants after grouse shooting honors, I will now confess. 
I shot at fifty, missed forty -nine, bought ten. Came 
home happy, and in better physical condition than in 
years before, and for many months enjoyed a great 
reputation for prowess. Sold Ned for $10 ($45 lost), 
changed my 10-bore for a 12-bore, joined a gun club, got 
