thought I, so working Dash very close, not per¬ 
mitting him to range over twenty yards ahead, I 
advanced. Just where I marked down the bird, 
Dash suddenly comes to a stiff point. The scrub¬ 
by bushes came about up to his breast, his head, 
back and tail were stretched out into one stiff 
line just above the bush tops. 
Fearing the bird might run again I circled 
around ahead of Dash and then went on in the 
line of his point, but no game got up. Puzzled, 
I retraced my steps toward Dash. There stood 
my good old pointer, rigid as a statue carved 
from marble, pointing directly at me. I ad¬ 
vanced slowly toward him. There crouched the 
grouse in the bush under his very nose. I put 
out my hand and picked her up without resist¬ 
ance. She had a fatal wound in her neck. 
I drove on to a long strip of cover; through it 
ran a wood road. Dash comes to a point on 
my right, then a running grouse whirs up and 
flies across the wood road on a diagonal. I miss 
him with my first, but tumble him with my sec¬ 
ond barrel, a ragged heels-over-head tumble, so 
ludicrous that I laugh outright. 
On to the schoolhouse cover, I hunt this thor¬ 
oughly, though a thick, disagreeable patch, but 
never a cock is there. At the further end, near 
the railroad, I lose Dash amid the thick spruces. 
I whistle to him in vain, then I call aloud. I 
hear a whimper and a spring within ten feet of 
me in the close cover, and the grouse he was 
pointing booms across an opening in front, a 
clear shot. I cut her down cleanly, while a 
great mass of feathers float in the sunlight and 
drift slowly down the vista. 
I soon reach the great marsh and hunt up the 
runs for snipe; not a sniff of one is to be had. 
Dash soon leaves the wet run and hunts along 
a thin strip of scrubby pines that fringe the 
creek. He makes game and I follow him. just in 
time to miss a grouse that rises from his point 
in thick cover. Dash draws on a few steps and 
stiffens into another point. Up gets another 
grouse in the very thickest of the pines. I fire 
a snap shot more by ear than eye, but this is a 
lucky day and my bird falls stone dead. Now 
we work along the narrow strip of wood in quest 
of the bird I missed. Dash works slowly. He 
trots ahead, pauses, looks around, sniffs the air, 
runs ahead a few steps, stops, lifts up one fore¬ 
leg trembling, and then crawls on again. I keep 
ahead of him in the open creek. At the very 
end of the strip of scrub pines Dash stiffens out 
into a point. The next moment a noble grouse 
steps beyond the furthest tree, and, taking wing, 
flies across the run like a duck directly over my 
head. Ah! what a rare open shot at this foxy 
bird! I fire, and he teeters down an inclined 
plane and strikes the wet rushy snipe ground 
dead. 
Driving home I stop and hunt a gamy-look- 
ing bit of woods. Dash strikes the scent of a 
grouse and works on this scent slowly and cau¬ 
tiously full quarter of an hour before he comes 
to a point. I keep some twenty yards to his 
right and abreast of him. The bird rises in 
front of Dash, his whir sounds like rumbling 
thunder in the still evening woods. He cuts 
across me from left to right. I catch but a 
glimpse of him through the pine tops, and fire. 
A moment’s silence, then “whack” off to the 
right. What was that? It sounded like some 
one striking a board fence with a club. I has- 
ten in the direction of the sound. There is the 
board fence; there is Dash on a point, and there, 
just through the rails, lies the grouse wing- 
broken. A dainty little club was he to strike 
a fence with. 
I drove home over the freezing ground tired 
and happy. My dog had found and pointed six 
grouse. J had shot them all over his point in 
eight shots. The best grouse shooting of my 
life. The six birds weighed eight pounds. The 
largest, an old cock, full ruffed, weighed a 
pound and a half. 
A few days after I dropped in on an old 
friend, whose popularity is only equalled by 
his fame as a good fellow, a delightful conver¬ 
sationalist and a thorough-going sportsman. To 
him I recounted my day’s sport. 
“Six grouse in eight shots over points?” he 
repeated; “the best shooting round here this fall, 
and you’ll never do it again.” And sure enough, 
I never have. 
I never did it before, either, nor anything like 
it, although how many times I have fired eight 
shots at grouse without touching a feather I 
would not like to mention. 
If a man can bag one grouse in three shots 
every day in the week, he is a crack shot, and can 
hold his own with anyone. One shot in five is 
good, and somehow long experience has taught 
me to have a respect for a man who can shoot 
a grouse flying anyhow, regardless of the num¬ 
ber of shots fired. 
One reason of my exceptionally good luck 
doubtless was that J felt fully up to shooting; - 
brim full of life and health. Another equally 
important reason, I was able to take everything 
easily and leisurely all day. 
But of one thing I am sure, and many subse- 
quent days’ sport have proved it. 
The prime requisite is an old, thoroughly brok¬ 
en, cautious and staunch dog. For the rest, keep 
well up with your dog, for the wily game will 
sometimes run and take to wing, just when your 
dog is coming to a point, utterly regardless of 
his feelings or your own. I well know that it 
is a great temptation after you have missed a 
half dozen shots flying, but I am sure no sports¬ 
man shoots this noble bird sitting but he is sorry 
for it afterward. 
Of course I do not speak of the grouse found 
in the deep woods of Canada. There they are 
so tame that it is almost impossible to drive them 
to take wing, and the tourist is compelled to 
bowl over on the ground as many as he wants 
for the camp pot. 
But anywhere else, where cleared land is 
the rule, and forest growth the exception, where 
the cover is in small patches, along the runs and 
up the hill sides, and where the grouse is com¬ 
pelled to frequently take wing and make long 
flights from one cover to another, in such dis¬ 
tricts the sportsman, with his staunch old pointer 
may have throughout our mellow autumn time 
as royal wing shooting as this continent affords, 
at the king of American game birds—the ruffed 
grouse. 
