March 8, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
299 
to six feet high in such steep-sided spots. The 
dogs soon played out their ginger and set to 
work, real earnest work that meant birds. The 
little cat-steps along the sides of the great hills, 
narrow and steep, gave the birds a splendid 
place to sun themselves and be warned of our 
approach. I cannot say that any other day ever 
gave me so many surprises. We found birds 
so plentiful and in such out of the way places 
that it was a wonder we shot one. They bobbed 
out from under our feet in many places where 
nothing but the quickest move would even allow 
of a shot in their direction. The chief item in 
the day's shoot was when my guide stood watch¬ 
ing me across the valley that separated us, each 
on the end of a great blufif, and (about four 
million. I was going to say) a hundred birds 
jumped up in front of me. They were all im¬ 
mediately under the blufif I was on, the dog 
elsewhere, of course, and sailed away across 
the valley. I had imagined my sixteen-gauge 
pump gun was full to the muzzle, but it had but 
five shells in it with which I knocked down 
five cripples—that is, they were cripples, I am 
sure, after I hit them and before they touched 
the grass. Then it was a dirty job to get down 
the slope where they had all fallen and “dig 
them out.” The grass was very high and thick 
as a doormat. The birds might have gotten out, 
I feared, by crawling and running, but strange 
to say, all of them were stone dead when found. 
I must have been hunting for them an hour, 
the dog almost useless at this sort of work. 
Down one swath of ground I walked, then 
back about three feet from that line of travel, 
up and down, until I had found them. It was 
a very exciting time. Get five cripples down 
and mad because your arms were so stiff that 
your gun came up clumsily, then have a dog 
that refuses to pay attention to a dead bird, and 
see what the result is to your temper! 
Going back to town we found dozens of 
birds in the corn. All told, I think we had 
twenty-one for the day’s shoot. But the guide 
had a family of seven bairns, and they must be 
fed. He hunted for the market largely and 
trapped, and not a single brat of the great brood 
was old enough to help him. The next few 
days were about like the first one, though game 
was not so easily found, the ground getting 
dry on the wind-swept bluffs and hills, and the 
dogs refusing to- hold as steadily on the birds. 
Truly it was trying to the poor dogs. They 
could not get in sight of the birds, most of them 
taking wing before we were within shot. 
My last trip was during the past fall. I 
have made many between the first and last, go¬ 
ing back into the hills a few miles further from 
settled country, if such it can be called. The 
further one retreats behind the bluffs the more 
sandy is the character of the country. Great 
blowouts, such as are denoted in the white¬ 
looking spot on the left of the photo, lay bare 
to the wind and weather, growing deeper and of 
THE SHOOTING QUARTERS IN THE SANDHILLS. 
Photograph by the Author. 
greater area during each savage wind storm. 
The hills are generally ranged with valleys be¬ 
tween. The shady spots are best for evening- 
hunting, and one can most always count on 
birds being found near water. Early morning 
finds them on the hills where the sun peeps out 
earliest to warm them. During the early por¬ 
tion of the season, when the young are holding 
to the dogs well, not having been pursued 
enough to make them flighty and keep them 
out of shooting distance, one can get a few 
fair shots. I have heard that better ground 
was to be had than I go shooting over. But 
there are old associations, the country one 
knows (though it be growing tamer each sea¬ 
son, owing to the plow and the fence of the 
little cattle man\ old friends and faces and 
fields—these all to keep one in the same sec¬ 
tion year after year. 
The big touring cars of the eastern sports¬ 
man who rolls down from his small private 
train with car and dog van, teams and saddle 
horses; the smaller rig with its two nasty-look¬ 
ing ponies and the village barber and his 
friend; the younger hunter from the nearby 
ranch with his gun across his shoulder as he 
tracks after the little herd of cows and calves; 
even the mail carrier who takes down his 
trusty gun when the season opens and stands 
It in the corner of his covered rig to have 
handy when the stray covey runs down the road 
ahead of him—all these are hunting the hills 
that once afforded kingly sport for a few 
men. 
The little sod shack with its little stable is 
giving way to the larger and more comfortable 
farm or ranch house, and the little ranchman is 
finding that he cannot cope with the conditions. 
He is selling out to the man with capital 
enough to own and carry on a medium-sized 
operation in cattle with his own land, and what 
he can buy from the one who is literally frozen 
out. 
Shooters are in greater numbers. The day 
of the prairie chicken is over. He will last 
some time if guarded in the preserves located 
near his heath. But memories of the days 
spent with them as the objects of prey cannot 
so swiftly be forgotten. While he lasted he 
fed thousands in and out of season. He was 
the delicious morsel of food which all put their 
teeth into, with a relish, while away in the 
sandhills in his pursuit and fighting the sand- 
flea. The fun of sitting in the saddle while 
following the dogs and watching them work, as 
we had to do during the past few years, owing 
to the great amount of territory to be covered 
to find a few birds, is over. Like the range 
country of the Dakotas, Montana and Wyo¬ 
ming, it is gone. But we can sit by the crack¬ 
ling fire and recall the fun, the unruly native 
dogs, the curs that often put to shame our un¬ 
tried bloods of the canine four hundred. 
The field trials in the sandhills are no more. 
The race horse dogs of the type bred to-day 
cannot find a covey in a four hours’ hunt, and 
we once found it possible for old Sport at 
fifteen years to locate and nail a bunch! 
