1190 
FOREST AND STREAM 
equal, and the matter of winning depended on 
luck and the individual’s shooting skill. 
We started out one cold Saturday morning, 
and only met as evening was drawing near. Mac 
proudly confessed to twenty-eight birds. And, 
I, strangely confessed to the same number. We 
were in an old cotton field that sloped to a wet 
swale grown up in timber and briar vines. The 
race was now a hot one. Jocko got over anxious 
on bare ground and the birds running before 
him would not stick, flushing in a moment when 
they flew in the thicket. 
I saw Duke drawing to a point over the rise. 
The birds had to stick for that hillbilly! 
From where I was I could see Mac wading 
the wet thicket, and the birds, crazy ones at 
that, were flushing wild ahead of Jocko. I saw 
a bird rise twenty yards ahead of my companion 
and light on the limb of a low haw bush. Mac 
peered all around to see if I were near. Then 
satisfied I was beyond observing him he shot 
and missed the bird. 
“Did you kill him?” I cried, concealing mj 
pleasure and tendency to laugh aloud. 
“No,” he hurled back, “shot at nothing but an 
old sparrow hawk!” 
I laughed again, but Mac was beyond hearing 
Two could play at that game! I almost caught 
up to Duke. Ahead of him along a bare row 
of cotton a covey of birds was running, then 
they found a little growth of sedge and crouched. 
I was sure of that. It was impossible, dim as 
was the light, for them to have deceived me. 
Mac had attempted foul tactics, here was where 
I would get even and lead with two or three 
birds! It was doubtful, if they rose, whether I 
could hold on them against the somber line of 
timber. I took careful aim and fired both bar¬ 
rels in the sedge. Birds boiled out in fright and 
flew to the woods. I ran to the sedge for the 
dead. For some reason I could never explain I 
had not touched a single bird. 
“Did you get it?” Mac yelled with a voice tin¬ 
gling with the mortification of defeat. 
“No!” I shouted back, a trifle peeved, “just 
another of those sparrow hawks!” 
Then darkness ended the sport. 
We wended our way back to his house along 
a well travelled tramway. I heard the hoot of 
an owl in the distance. It seemed to mock me- 
“Mac, what kind of a hawk was that you shot 
at?” I demanded jokingly. 
Then Mac burst out laughing, whereupon I 
joined in. Immediately we confessed. 
V. 
The Passing of Duke. 
D OGS are like humans; they succumb in time 
to age. The best dogs are far too short¬ 
lived. For years they perform valuable 
service, to drop out and leave us some time with 
a heavy heart until another pup develops’ and 
wins his way into our affections. 
All of us who have spent twenty years with 
the dogs in the stubble and cover are able with¬ 
out coaxing the memory to recall some great 
dogs that added an immense amount of pleasure 
to our outings. As much as the shooting itself is 
the dog, and for that reason no outdoor pastime 
approaches quail shooting in reminiscences. It 
may be the dog of your friend or your own, 
but few of them will carry such a perpetual 
weight of happy recollections as the first dog 
over which you killed your first bird. 
My old chum Duke showed his breeding in 
every act in the field, and though Osborne Ale 
may have had better get, I shall be satisfied if 
all the dogs I own hereafter will have the great 
field qualities of this pointer. 
Duke’s last year of work indicated a falling 
off in scenting ability. People that hunted with 
me never admitted it. I knew it. I never said 
much about it, for that he was aging hurt me 
more than I could bear to tell, and a reference 
to it pained me for a long time. But I had the 
field education, boy as I was, to realize that his 
work was entirely dependent on his bird sense, 
and his nose had become a very secondary organ. 
Still he made the spectacular points and casts 
in the open, but if you observed him carefully 
you would promptly notice that he was using 
Duke Had a Particular Aversion Toward 
Water. 
experience, as when he arrived among birds 
his keenness of scent was wanting. When he got 
to this stage in place of scent he resorted to his 
extraordinary knowledge of their habits. And 
it was observable further on scattered birds in 
the woods. 
I am now sure of my grounds when I say he 
began to point most of singles by sight, for often 
where I kicked them up nothing seemed to indi¬ 
cate that any scent whatever was recognized by 
him. 
Father accused Duke of having more peculiari¬ 
ties than any dog he ever owned or saw. Every¬ 
body agreed to this. Duke loved milk, and if 
anything that gratified him as much as all the 
sweet milk he could drink on his return from a 
day’s hunt, no one living ever noted it. My 
aunt’s baby frequently was the victim of this 
passion. If the baby’s bottle was left anywhere, 
Old Duke would surely get it, and he was a per¬ 
fect highwayman in his tactics. Let anyone turn 
while the baby had possession of the bottle of 
milk, Duke would grab it out of the supplicating 
hands and depart with it. But he never failed to 
return it after it was despoiled of its contents. 
On very cold nights we began to permit the 
old dog to stay in the house. Close to the fire¬ 
place was a large box where Duke made his 
headquarters for the night. One night they left 
the baby’s bottle on the sideboard. It was half 
filled with milk. The sideboard was promiscu¬ 
ously strewn with lamps, one of them lighted 
and wick turned low; glasses, dishes, altogether 
about as much as it would hold. But Duke, cat¬ 
like, climbed on the sideboard, drank all of the 
baby’s milk, descended without knocking over 
a single thing. And he had only one mode of 
drinking from the bottle. He tapped the nipple 
gently with his paw, and lapped up the slowly 
exuding drops. 
Amongst all his bad habits his thieving pro¬ 
clivities were the most annoying. For this Duke 
caused me lots of embarrassment. No house, 
barring our own, was sacred from his invasions. 
Well-to-do or the poor, it mattered not. If he 
found a door open and after peering round was 
satisfied that the coast was clear, he seized the 
list bit of food nearby. The larger the amount 
he better it suited him. One day we were hunt- 
ng up along an old hillside, where for several 
.ears a cabin had been vacant. 
Quite frequently the birds used the old gar¬ 
den, now given over to giant undomesticated 
vegetation. So, when we beat up against the 
wind in. that territory I looked for him to nail 
a covey of quail without fail. As 1 searched 
with my eyes for him up on the ridge of high 
growths I was aware that the house was occu¬ 
pied. Smoke was ascending in a blue circular 
column from the mud and stick chimney. 
Duke was not in view. I hastened up the hill 
under the impression that I would find the in¬ 
fallible one on a covey. Before I gained the 
summit I heard a terrible noise, children shout¬ 
ing, a woman screaming and cur dogs barking. 
Duke was holding firmly to a small side of 
bacon with the few teeth he had remaining. An 
aged lady of slender figure pulled at the bacon 
with her left hand while she belabored the dog 
over the head with a broom she wielded skilfully 
with the other. Two dirty "young hillbillies in 
the rear were screaming to the limit of their 
lung capacity, a pair of half-breed hounds adding 
to the din, for they could not screw up courage 
to attack. 
As soon as Duke caught sight of me he re¬ 
leased his hold and slunk away in the weeds. 
And I, thinking to make amends for my pet’s 
shameful behavior ventured to offer settlement 
for the damage with the mistress of the house. 
But she came al me with the broom so threaten¬ 
ingly that I changed my plans of peace, and hur¬ 
ried in the wake of the cause of the disturbance. 
An afternoon at the pond Duke amused us 
hugely. As mentioned in another place Duke 
literally despised water. In summertime he de¬ 
spised it almost as badly as in winter. There 
was only one thing that gave him as much an¬ 
noyance as water and that was a grasshopper r 
have known him in early fall to run half way 
heme, because a grasshopper had lodged on 
his back. Yet he had the toughest hide imagin¬ 
able. It was barbed wire proof, for he never had 
a cut from it. Quite a record for a bird dog! 
We were at the pond, shooting doves as they 
dipped in the afternoon for water. We sat on 
the dam on the south end cracking at the pass 
birds. We had three young dogs that promised 
sometime or other to go in the water, but at 
present they were renowned for their refusals 
Duke slept at my feet. I knocked a dove in the 
middle of the pond. I showed it .to the pups. 
They made a movement to enter the water, 
but backed off. The dove fluttered a wing in 
