December, 1921 
537 
night was over so that I might start with 
him into the woods. 
V/| Y aunt gave me an early breakfast 
and it was barely daylight when 
Oliver, with a few final instructions, 
untied the dog for me. When Jack saw 
that I carried a gun he fairly went wild 
and capered and jumped about me like 
mad. Looking back once or twice to 
see if I were coming,' he raced up the 
road to the woods, not more than forty 
rods away. I was still in the road when 
I heard him begin to bark, and when I 
reached him I found him at the foot of 
a chestnut tree that was bare of leaves 
and not more than forty feet in height. 
I could see no sign of a squirrel on the 
tree, but Jack was looking so eagerly 
up the tree that it seemed impossible 
that he was fooling me. Finally I picked 
up a small stick and threw it into the 
dry leaves on the ground on the opposite 
side of the tree. Instantly up near the 
top of the tree a black squirrel whipped 
around a branch and exposed itself. It 
was an easy shot, and at the crack of 
the gun it came tumbling down through 
the bare branches to the ground. Jack 
snapped up the squirrel the instant it 
struck the ground, gave it one shake, 
dropped it and raced off to another one. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
The squirrel was coal-black, sleek and 
plump, with a long, bushy tail, and I spent 
a minute or two in admiring it before I 
attached it to the belt which I carried 
for that purpose. I had barely finished 
loading the gun when I heard Jack bark- 
ing again a hundred yards away. I 
found him dancing around the foot of a 
tall hickory tree, and it took me some 
time to locate a gray squirrel lying in a 
crotch high up near the top of the tree. 
Two shots were required to dislodge and 
kill this squirrel, and when I had it tied 
beside the black squirred and my gun 
again loaded I noticed that Jack ap- 
peared unwilling to go and was moving 
about examining the hickory tree from 
all sides. I took hold of a long, slender 
sapling that stood near the hickory and 
shook it vigorously. At once a black 
squirrel ran up the trunk of the tree to 
the very tip, where it clung to some small 
branches and I easily shot it. It had 
been so completely hidden that without 
Jack’s aid I should have lost it. That 
forenoon I killed three black squirrels 
and four gray ones. They were all very 
plump squirrels in prime condition, and 
the string of seven made, in my estima- 
tion, a fine sight. 
Only once that morning did I have 
a chance to observe Jack’s method of 
hunting. I was on the top of a ridge 
and could see him in the valley below 
me. He was not using his nose, but his 
eyes and ears. He would run swiftly 
in one direction then stop, stand stock- 
still, looking and listening. Once he 
stood upon his hind legs to hear or see 
the better. Finally he evidently heard 
something, for I saw him stop his ap- 
parently aimless racing around and dart 
towards a large oak, up the trunk of 
which I saw a gray squirrel running. 
The squirrel ran up into the top of the 
tree and then crossed over on the upper 
branches into a second tree and in the 
same way into a third tree. Jack was 
always directly under it, barking at in- 
tervals to frighten and confuse it. Only 
when it had finally stopped and hidden 
itself in the tall pine tree from which 
later I shot it did he begin his sharp, 
persistent barking that meant that the 
game was treed. Afterwards I learned 
that when he saw a squirrel enter a hole 
in a tree, as one occasionally did, he 
gave it up and started immediately to 
hunt up another. 
I N the afternoon Jack and I hunted a 
piece of woods that lay along the west- 
ern edge of the farm on two sides of a 
( Continued on page 575) 
I had barely finished loading my gun when Jack was ready to show me another squirrel 
