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FOREST AND STREAM 
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There Is Joy in The Brown October Days 
Particula j When They Come in Combination With a Good Dog, a Ready Gun, and a Hunting Section 
That will Yield a Fair Day’s Return of Grouse 
By Nimrod. 
HERE'S joy in brown October. 
Up through the alders the cock 
springs, a ruddy rocket, whis¬ 
tling like the merry jingle of 
silver sleigh bells. A snap 
shot into the alder top ahead, 
a leather floating down a wood¬ 
land visfp, “Hie on ‘fetch,’ ” 
and your victory is complete, as Dash comes 
running in, his mouth full with the red-brown 
beauty. 
Out in the wide marsh your dog comes to a 
dead point by an oozy creek. “Scaipe! scaipe!” 
up flip a brace of snipe and stagger away in 
their drunken flight. Bang! bang! thud! thud! 
and you lift your hat after a glorious double shot, 
the west wind cools your brow and plays through 
your hair, and you thank God for life and health, 
keen eye and true hand, the blue sky and the 
bright sun. 
Away in the woodlands is a sunny glade. The 
white clad birch, bride of the forest, covers the 
hill slopes. On the heights above towers the 
pine; below, where the brook tinkles down the 
run, nestles the alder. See! your pointer halts, 
sniffs, swings his nose up in the air; then, 
crouching, crawls up the hillside. At a thick 
clump of young spruces he points. Soon the tip 
of his tail wags in uncertainty, he sniffs to right 
and left, then warily crawls, step by step, through 
the thicket, his belly almost dragging on the 
ground, his footfalls soft and velvety as a cat’s. 
You know the game and their tricks, and with 
both barrels full cock run round to the further 
side of the copse. 
There is Dash’s head peering out of the thicket, 
motionless, on full point. You carefully step 
forward. The great silence of the forest op¬ 
presses you. You can hear your heart beat 
Whir-r-r-r-r-r-r! Like a peal of thunder it rum¬ 
bles through the glen. Beyond a stunted fir, a 
flash of brown and gray bursts into air. You 
fire a snap shot into the thick branches, and 
through an opening ahead down tumbles a grand 
old cock grouse, turning half a dozen somer¬ 
saults in his slanting fall, and striking the leaf- 
strewn ground with so heavy a thud that he 
bounds into air again and rolls down the slope. 
Aha! my friend. A joy fills your sportsman 
heart greater than victory, over ruddy cock or 
wily snipe can ever give. 
You have laid low the feathered king of the 
forest; shot him fairly and manfully, a good fly¬ 
ing shot, over a dead point. 
One day in early November, I drove late and 
leisurely out of town. . 
It was a glorious Indian summer day, the 
winds were asleep, the clouds at rest; a bright 
sun shone out of a clear blue sky and the ma¬ 
ples and birches glowed red and gold among the 
evergreen woods. 
In the straw behind the wagon seat nestled my 
good old pointer, Dash, as staunch and careful a 
dog as ever drew on game. My horse struck a 
brisk trot and we rattled merrily along. 
My object was partly woodcock shooting, and 
I had reasoned myself into the belief that I 
should strike the last flight of this uncertain bird. 
I soon reached the first cover, hitched my horse 
to the fence, whistled to Dash, and plunged into 
the alders and birches. Through the cover and 
back again did I hunt but never a scent of wood¬ 
cock could Dash find. Two more covers we ran 
through, but they were silent and deserted as the 
first. The last flight of woodcock had gone 
south. 
In a level patch of woods Dash made game. 
By the stealthy way he crawled ahead, I knew 
he had struck a fresh scent of grouse, so I has¬ 
tened and went on abreast of him. 
At a bunch of alder bushes he stiffens into a 
point, and a moment after a running grouse 
booms into the air some thirty yards in advance. 
I fired quickly; down she tumbled, and a moment 
after I heard her wings beating the death tattoo 
on the ground. Cramming in a fresh cartridge, 
and calling Dash to heel, I leisurely advanced to 
pick up my bird, when to my astonishment she 
rose and flew away as vigorously as ever. 
My surprise was so great that I stood and 
gawked at her, and never thought of firing. She 
flew about a hundred yards and lit in some 
bushes outside the woods and close to a house 
by the roadside. “I’ll have her now. surely,” 
