?50 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 14, 1912 
WAITING FOR DINNER. 
DINING. 
to the left as we went forward. All about us 
was open shooting. Iv. stamped heavily upon 
the ground. The bird rose beautifully and from 
my gun came two spiteful cracks of smokeless 
powder. I missed with both barrels. 
“Hoh!” snorted K., and fired his right in 
vain. We looked at each other shamefacedly. 
Wag looked at both of us as if he were be¬ 
wildered. K. rested his gun upon the ground. 
“We’re going to have that bird,” he an¬ 
nounced, “if I have to go in there and bring 
him out with my hands and beat him to death 
with the gun. We can't afford—holy cats!” 
Between us and a little to our right a wood¬ 
cock had risen with its subdued whistle, and 
making one brief dive, had vanished from sight 
toward the brook. I fired as he went out of 
sight and mentally berated myself for doing 
so. Wag vanished behind the bird. 
“Second bird to get away,” I remarked. K. 
made no reply and I turned, to find him staring 
at Wag, who was approaching from the brook 
with a limp woodcock in his mouth. 
“Will you kindly explain to me.” queried 
K., politely, “how you manage to shoot birds 
behind you—and out of sight at that—when you 
miss those in front and in open shooting? I’d 
really like to know.” 
I dissembled, turning from him to hide my 
astonished face, and taking the bird from Wag. 
“Oh, it's largely a matter of habit—and judg¬ 
ment.” I replied. “When one gets used-” 
“Aw, shucks!” remarked K. 
So, failing to make him accept this view, 
we turned our attention to the first bird. Wag 
raced ahead and we followed more slowly, the 
stiff birch limbs making a pleasant scratching 
upon our hunting coats and the fallen birch 
and poplar leaves upon the brown June-grass 
making a soft carpet for our feet. Down the 
hill toward the point where the first bird had 
gone out of sight, Wag had stopped his racing 
and was quartering the ground carefully, his tail 
waving frantically. We broke into a run. 
Wag had roaded the bird into a dense 
thicket of alders, and for a moment we stood 
debating. It looked like hopeless work to at¬ 
tempt to shoot in there. 
“Oh, well,” said K., “you’ve had the luck 
to kill one bird and maybe you can shoot this 
one. I'll go in and drive him out and you can 
try again.” 
So in he went. I could see the brown 
shooting coat for a moment, and then it was 
swallowed up in the tangle of growth, and my 
only guide to his progress was the waving of 
the alder tops as he forged ahead. Suddenly 
there was the sharp crack of his sixteen-gauge. 
A moment later he emerged with a woodcock 
in his hand. 
“Did you get it in there?” I asked, stupidly. 
To me there seemed hardly room to swing a 
revolver in that tangle, to say nothing of a 
shotgun. 
“Sure,” he replied, contentedly. He placed 
the bird carefully in his pocket and beamed 
upon me. “Takes an expert to get a biyd in a 
place like that,” he went on. “A dub couldn’t 
do it once in a thousand. Lucky I was the 
one to go in.” 
“Where’s Wag?” I queried, shortly. K.’s 
luck was disgusting. 
“He went through,” replied K. “I thought 
I'd rather back out and go ’round. It’s mighty 
thick in there. Wag acted as if he were roading 
a partridge. He’ll run her out on the other 
side. Maybe we’d better get ’round there some¬ 
time to-day.” 
As he spoke there arose on the further side 
of the thicket a mighty beating of wings and 
there hove into view a partridge, coming down 
the wind and dead toward us. K.’s gun came 
to his shoulder like a flash and cracked as it 
came to a pause. The partridge wings spread 
rigidly and, as if borne on a current of rising 
air, it shot almost straight into the air for fifty 
feet. 
“Got a shot in its head,” remarked K. 
tranquilly. “They always tower like that when 
they’re shot in the head.” He walked forward 
and picked lip the partridge. “Dead as Oliver 
Cromwell,” he remarked, “and look at his 
head.” 
Wag had not returned nor could we hear 
his bell, so we made a long detour to the right 
to get around the alders. K. was ahead and 
to my left, and as we rounded the end and came 
to the higher ground, two woodcock arose 
from a bunch of gray birches and winged 
away in front of us at acute angles. 
“Mark, right" I said. 
“Mark, left!” said K., and we both shot. 
It was open shooting—not a tree between us 
and the birds. Then we used our second bar¬ 
rels. But not even a fluttering feather reward¬ 
ed us and we looked as each other in disgust. 
“Well,” remarked K., “I'm glad the dog 
didn’t see that!” 
What makes this difference in one’s shoot¬ 
ing? All that day we shot like this. Open, 
clear shots that looked easy brought no game 
to our pockets. Hard shots in which there 
seemed to be no promise of success returned 
woodcock to us. All through this pleasant 
cover we worked that day and started over 
forty woodcock and out of all that array we 
got only seven. K.’s partridge was the only 
bird shot under normal conditions. Up on the 
top of the hill by the scrub beeches we found 
woodcock all around us and the sharp crack 
of the sixteen-gauges was heard almost con¬ 
stantly. Here the shooting was complex—some 
shots were in the clear and some were made 
under difficulties. The “brakes” were high and 
there was much sweet fern. Blackberry thorns 
made it hard going for the dog. Scrubby beech 
—to which the leaves cling all winter—inter¬ 
fered with our seeing the birds as they rose 
and blended with the brown leaves. Flaming 
sumac hid them. Yet all day we shot and 
missed and shot again, quartering over that 
best of all covers near Bangor, and at night 
we climbed into the car contentedly, with only 
seven woodcock and one partridge. And we 
knew then that it is not always the number of 
the birds shot that makes the happy feeling that 
one remembers. 
“After all,” remarked K., as we drove 
homeward, “I’m pretty well satisfied. Every 
bird had a sporting chance with us to-day. At 
best, I only bet the price of a shell against a 
bird’s life and he bets his very existence. These 
seven lost out—that’s all.” 
Greeley’s Tribune and Dana’s Sun were 
forces in their day because of the magnetic con¬ 
tact of editor and reader. Search America and 
you will find at least one such paper to-day; 
Forest and Stream, the sportsman’s weekly. 
