72 BREAKING A BIRD DOG 
from the barnyard we found ourselves in the 
thickest and best pheasant cover that it has 
ever been my fortune to see. The only 
trouble was the great effort it caused Byrd 
in her work. It was a terrible strain on her 
and very tiring the way she had to leap up 
and over the tangled masses of fallen clover 
matted with snow. 
We hadn’t gone very far before two birds 
got up in front of Mr. King and he missed 
delightfully with both barrels. There sure 
were pheasants in that patch of clover. 
Before we had gone the length of it each one 
of us, except John Reymiller, had been 
granted at least one shot. Pheasant cer¬ 
tainly carry away a lot of lead, so we will 
not attempt to prophesy here how many 
were clean misses. Suffice it to say that no 
birds were bagged. We crossed a rather 
open field where we had seen some of the 
pheasants fly and in a minute or two after 
going over that fence into an orchard bor¬ 
dering the field, Byrd made a pretty point. 
She held it nicely, but as we came up to her 
the bird fluttered up into an apple tree 
straight overhead. That was the funniest 
