402 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Sept. 27, 1913. 
The Taking of Old Black Neck 
By FRANK L. BAILEY 
A WAY up ill the northeast end of “Dr. 
Austin’s Woods” (down in Harpswell, 
Maine) where the spruce and bayberry 
are so closely interwoven as to be almost im¬ 
penetrable, lies a big, round boulder, the once- 
favorite stamping ground of Old Black Neck. 
For many moons the wily old partridge had 
held undisputed possession of this bit of forest. 
Had strutted, drummed and raised large families 
in its peaceful solitude until the coming of two 
sunburned, slim-legged nimrods in the shape of 
Frank and 1 . then things changed. 
We had never seen him—no one had to our 
knowledge—for in order to have done this, it 
would necessitate the ability of jumping fifty 
feet with the speed of an express train, and the 
possession of an eye as penetrating as the 
X-ray. At least, that’s the way Frank and I 
had figured it out. As to his inhabiting this 
spot there was no question, the evidence was 
there. And time and again we had stalked to 
within twenty yards of the spot, only to hear 
his mighty wings beat the air until it seemed we 
could feel the wind of them on our hot faces, 
so rapidly did he bore away into the dark forest. 
His ability for determining our proximity 
was so marvelous that sometimes we wondered 
if he were not in league with the chickadees, 
the little red squirrels—or the devil. We were 
not fortunate enough to possess a good dog, so 
the outwitting of him lay in our own youthful 
ingenuity, and it taxed it sorely. 
One afternoon late in September, we had 
been up in the head of Ash Cove for the last 
of the fall ring-neck and possibly a stray plover, 
when on the way home we decided to have an¬ 
other try at Old Black Neck. We sat down on 
a log. cast up by the tide, and planned the at¬ 
tack. I was to take a position some twenty 
yards north of the rock, a course that he in¬ 
variably pursued, while Frank was to work his 
way around to the south and scare him up. 
Slowly and painfully 1 made my way 
through the tangled maze of briar and bayberry 
until I had gained the desired location, then I 
stopped to wait—and sweat. There was a small 
opening in the spruces, about fifteen yards in 
front and some ten feet from the ground that 
I had figured he would pass through, so with 
muscles set and eyes strained, I watched that 
spot. It was calm and still, the silence so pro¬ 
found that I could almost hear it. Suddenly a 
red squirrel just behind me sprang his chatter, 
giving my high-strung nerves such a shock that 
I nearly fell over. 1 shivered a couple of times 
and resumed my vigil. Presently I heard a 
faint whistle. Frank’s signal to be ready, and I 
half-raised my gun. resolving not to waste any 
unnecessary time, for 1 knew Old Black Neck 
wouldn’t. 
“Bang!" went Frank’s gun, closely followed 
by a “whir” and a gray thunderbolt, that left 
me only the air to shoot at. The way that bird 
annihilated space was something awful. I fired, 
but I might as well have tried to stop Niagara 
Falls with my bare hands. 1 reckoned he would 
be coming some, but I hadn't anticipated any¬ 
thing like that. I heard Frank floundering 
around in the briars, and pretty soon he ap¬ 
peared clawing the cobwebs from his face, 
mouth and eyes. 
"Did you get him?” he inquired. 
“No. Did you?” I returned. 
"Of course I didn’t,” answered Frank. 
"Didn't you see him? He came this way.” 
I informed Frank that I wasn’t quite sure 
whether I had seen him or not. There had been 
some kind of a canonball come my way, but 1 
couldn't swear as to its identity. 
Well, we gave it up there was nothing else 
to do, so we went home that night and slept 
over it. The next afternoon we made another 
attempt. Two Indians never crept with greater 
stealth toward an unsuspecting quary than we 
did for that partridge. I'll guarantee that there 
wasn't a leaf rustled or a twig snapped until 
Frank caught his toe under a tree root, and 
went down with a grunt. That settled it, we 
knew Old Black Neck wasn't there, for not a 
sight or sound of him did we get as a result of 
Frank’s fall. But contrary to custom, law and 
everything else the moment we parted the 
bushes to pear in: Slam! bang! whang! away 
he went, while Frank and I opened our mo ihs 
and stared, and to add to our misery, a rabbit 
that had been quietly watching proceedings, 
scudded off under the bushes and we lost him. 
Nothing daunted, we set out m the direc¬ 
tion taken by our feathered friend and were re¬ 
warded by hearing him jump thirty feet to the 
left, and go hunting through briar and hay- 
berry with the speed of an arrow. The pro¬ 
ficiency with which that gray meteor could buck 
a bunch of briars, a clump of dwarf spruces and 
a stone wall, would have secured him a position 
on any football team in the country. 
We decided that he must have crossed the 
pasture to Stover's woods and we immediately 
set out in pursuit. Crossing with some little 
difficulty the pasture of bog and juniper, we 
entered an old abandoned road, partly over¬ 
grown with bushes. Frank, -who was a few 
paces in advance, suddenly held up a warning 
hand, he had glimpsed something scudding 
along the road. Cocking our guns, we took a 
few cautious steps forward and halted, eyes and 
ears on the alert. Seeing nothing for the 
moment, we took one step and. “Whir!” away 
he sailed. We threw' up our guns and fired, 
wdiile Old Black Neck cleverly put a small clump 
of bushes between himself and us, he was strong 
for that anyway. A few' short gray feathers 
floated in the air, that was all, he had put one 
over us again. We slipped in fresh shells of 
No. 8s and picked up several feathery souvenirs, 
then resumed the trail. We had heard him go 
banging into the spruces twenty or thirty yards 
to the front, but try as we might, we could not 
start him again. Concluding that he was lost, 
we abandoned the chase and returned home. 
For days we haunted the place. We scat¬ 
tered corn on the ground, set a steel trap and 
did everything we could think of. We studied 
the problem in school when w r e should have 
been studying arithmetic, we laid awake nights 
when we should have been asleep, and we idled 
away time in the woods when we should have 
been at home sawing our mother’s wood. 
Finally, late in November when the leaves 
were off the trees, and the mornings were crisp 
and frosty, we set out before sunrise to destroy 
Old Black Neck or die in the attempt. We car¬ 
ried a goodly supply of molasses cookies in our 
pockets and resolved to stay all day if necessary. 
The partly-frozen seaweed along the shoie 
sounded a cheery “crish! crish!" under our teet, 
and our exhaled breaths turned to vapor on the 
crisp morning air. Over Bar Island a few 1 izy- 
winged gulls wheeled aimlessly here and the.e, 
occasionally' emiting shrill cries, which were 
taken up by other gulls further down the cove. 
A couple of crows were patiently clamming off 
on the mud-flats, picking one up now and then, 
and flying a few feet into the air to drop it on a 
rock, then descending to secure the juicy morsel 
laid bare by their ingenious efforts. The sun 
rose slowly above the cluster of gray-roo.ed 
cottages of the A burn Colony, communicating 
its golden radiance to the calm blue waters of 
the Cove, and its friendly warmth to all within 
its reach. Gaining the head of the cove, we 
clambered up the bank and were soon crossing 
the little rustic bridge at the outlet of CatlainY 
Pond. A moment more and we were putting 
shells into our guns preparatory to entering the 
woods. How beautiful and quiet it all was. 
Scarcely a leaf rustled. Already the little silver 
frost-gems were disappearing quietly here and 
there as the gentle sunbeams sought them out, 
one by one. If Old Black Neck wasn't on the 
job to-day it was no fault of the morning. 
Moving cautiously, with Frank giving the 
past-offending tree-root a wide margin, we 
neared the sacred spot. Gaining a position 
where we could see the rock clearly through the 
low spruce bows, we peered in. The contrast 
from light to dark was so strong for the mo¬ 
ment that we were unable to see much. Finally, 
as our eyes became more accustomed to the 
deep shadows, we took a good look, but that 
was all. Old Black Neck was either lying in 
bed late that morning, or he had come and gone 
before our arrival. There was nothing to do 
but wait, and wait we did. Slowly the minutes 
dragged. It was so quiet and peaceful that I 
could plainly hear the rushing flow of the ebb 
tide as it raced through the leaky dam of the 
old grist mill over in the basin, two miles away.. 
A sprightly red squirrel darted up a tree nearby, 
and I watched him spring nimbly from limb to 
limb, never slipping, never making a false move¬ 
ment. till he had lost himself to view in the 
heavy shades of the dark spruces. A hawk 
sailed lazily overhead, pearing to right and left, 
hungrily seeking some feathered morsel for his 
breakfast. Suddenly his wings caught the gentle 
uplift of the growing northern air-currents, and 
began circling in ever-widening spirals until he 
became a mere speck against the blue. 
I was munching a molasses cookie when 
Frank gave my arm a quick nudge. Dropping 
the cookie, I opened both mouth and ears to 
listen. There was just the faintest suspicion of 
(Continued on page 415.) 
