620 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Nov. 15, 1913. 
An Afternoon with the Grouse 
By FRANK L. BAILEY 
aged to get my left foot over the limb, and per¬ 
forming an acrobatic stunt, I pulled myself up 
till I could grasp it with my right hand and 
wriggled back to safety. 
“So ver back again,” said the worthy Tom 
Dangler, enraged beyond all measure, and 
then, as though struck by a sudden thought, 
“ ’Owever, small good will come to you out of 
that,” and grasping the ax firmly in both hands, 
he suddenly sent it swishing into the trunk of 
the tree. 
“Now, see here,” I shouted with a despera¬ 
tion, in which fear and rage mingling together, 
lent to me a certain ferocious courage, “now, 
see here, you stop cutting that tree down!” 
“Fine chance of me stopping now that hi’ve 
started,” replied Tom. 
“But I tell you I’m not Harold Wether- 
ington. and I have letters at home that will 
prove he’s my cousin.” 
“Your cousins made trouble enough for the 
whole bloomin’ ’family,” he answered. “And if 
I can’t get ’im, hi’ll take ’is cousin by way of 
a compromise.” Kerchug! the tree trembled 
(kerchug). “And after him comes ’Arold, ’im- 
self (kerchug), and then ’is father, hand then ’is 
grandfather, presumin’ ’e’s alive, and shortly 
hall the others.” Kerchug! the tree trembled. 
“Hand so you see (kerchug) you’re only the 
first (kerchug), hand probably the most insig¬ 
nificant of all.” 
Kerchug! the tree trembled violently. 
Something must be done. If I jumped he 
was sure to pounce on me with that ax as soon 
as I struck the ground, and if I stayed where I 
was he was equally sure to do so. I tried to> 
reason with him. Kkerchug! I called on him 
to drop his ax and fight me like a man. Ker¬ 
chug! I told him no true Briton would refuse 
a fair fight. Kerchug! Swish! Cree-ee-k! I 
felt a great rising sensation and knew that I was 
traveling through the air at a terrific rate of 
speed. I found myself on Mother Earth with¬ 
out recalling how I got there. I saw him swing 
the glittering ax above his head, and hear him 
say: “Hi gets yer ’art’s -” 
I woke up with the inevitable start. Little 
Gala Day stood peacefully nibbling grass by the 
roadside utterly oblivious of the fact that both 
of my feet were out of the stirrups. Turning 
her head toward the fair grounds, I took a long, 
■deep breath, and becoming lost in wonder at 
the beauty of the stars, the moon, and the 
Texas landscape, thought that on a night like 
this night life was surely worth living, and ap¬ 
preciated. as I never had before, how lucky a 
■chap is to be alive. 
One of the largest and most valuable timber 
trees of the country is the tulip tree, known to 
lumbermen as yellow poplar. It is related to 
the magnolias, but is the only tree of its kind 
in the world. 
The largest tree in the United States is 
said to be the “Mother of the Forest,” a giant 
redwood in the Calaveras bigtree grove in Cali¬ 
fornia. It is supposed to contain 140,619 board 
feet of lumber. There are, however, many 
claimants for the honor of being the “largest 
tree” and the “oldest tree,” and these claims, 
according to foresters, can not always be veri¬ 
fied. 
1 RECALL one beautiful late October morning 
during my senior year in College. I was 
bending over my desk, wrestling strenuously 
with a French translation, when from the 
capacious depths of the Morris chair came trie 
word: “Bill?” 
I turned, pulling my fingers from my 
TROPHIES. 
towsled hair, and faced the Count. “Well,” I 
replied. “What say to a little trip across the 
Penobscot this afternoon, and a try at the par¬ 
tridge?” asked my room-mate from behind a 
blue wall of tobacco smoke. That question 
smoothed down all my difficulties. I would cut 
French that afternoon, also a couple of hours 
of laboratory chemistry, and forget my troubles. 
“What about guns?” I asked. 
“Easy,’ rejoined the Count. “I'll borrow 
Buster Boyle’s 12-gauge, and you can hire one 
over town.” 
Tilings shaped themselves swiftly after that, 
and 1:30 p. m. found us crossing the rushing 
Penobscot on the little ferry. Just a word about 
this ferry boat. It ran on a trolley, a steel 
cable being stretched from bank to bank, while 
the ferryman steered the craft in such a manner 
that the current furnished all the propelling 
power necessary for the trip. It was the first 
and only one o.f its kind I had even seen—quite 
an ingenious method of transportation. The 
fare was five cents, and return. 
Stepping out on the other side, we entered 
a wood road, a veritable paradise of green and 
crimson and gold. Little red squirrels scurried 
nimbly here and there, while saucy bluejays 
shrieked their shrill challenges at us from the 
tops of neighboring maples. A red-headed 
woodpecker was hammering industriously away 
at a white birch, and the wholesome balsamic 
odors of spruce and pine permeated the air. 
Slipping shells into our guns, and a gen¬ 
erous amount of “Lucky Strike” into our pipes, 
we walked leisurely along the path. The Count 
was just relating a social function he had at¬ 
tended at Tivoli-on-the-Hudson, or some other 
place, when up jumped two grouse from the 
path directly ahead. Totally unprepared, we 
fired, resulting in a double miss and a broken 
pipe-stem—I had snapped the amber between 
my teeth. I looked ruefully at my crippled pipe 
lying on the ground, while the Count cheerfully 
offered me a cigarette. 
Guns recharged, we followed the path 
further into the forest. At a place where the 
road forked, we separated, agreeing to meet 
there in an hour. I pursued my journey until 
the path came to an abrupt ending, then plunged 
into the dense woods. For a while I floundered 
about through brush and briar, and came out 
in a small clearing. Here everything was filled 
with the beauty of autumn. The sweet wood 
odors asailed my nostrils pleasantly, and the 
musical tinkle of a little stream reached my ear. 
Following the sound, I came to where a little 
brook gurgled among the rocks, and I lay flat 
and refreshed myself from the cool waters. 
Hearing a rustle among the leaves at my right, 
I arose, startled, to find a deer peering at me 
inquisitively from the bushes. It was a young 
doe. and no doubt the woman’s curiosity had 
gotten the better of her. For a moment we 
regarded each other like statues, when at the 
slightest movement of my arm, she disappeared, 
and I heard her go crashing away among the 
branches. 
Drawing a long breath, I picked up my 
gun, and made my way along the course of the 
brook, until it led me to a swamp of young 
alders. There was plenty of water underfoot, 
but my moccasins were ample proof against it, 
so I continued my way, dry shod. I heard the 
far-off report of the Count’s gun, and made a 
mental bet that he missed. He did those things 
habitually. The section before me looked like 
good partridge ground, and I advanced cau¬ 
tiously. My vigilance was rewarded, too, for 
suddenly a venerable old partriarch got up from 
