FOREST AND STREAM 
1139 
Transfixed on the Edge of a Sedge Patch Stood the Old Fellow, High-headed and Positive 
of a Covey Find. 
of feathers! I beat Duke to it. And there, dead 
on the lespedeza at my feet, was a monster cock 
quail laying on its back, its beautiful white throat 
pointing to me. Picking it up I smoothed its 
beautiful plumage, held its still warm body to 
my cheeks and shouted to the world my happi¬ 
ness. 
Laugh, if you will, blase sportsmen who have 
killed thousan.’.c lit remember it was a boy, 
his first gun, his first dog and his first quail! 
III. 
At Fault. 
Quail hunters in a way are similar in their pre- 
dilictions to other devotees of outdoor sports. With 
experience, ideals and ideas undergo a change, 
and instruments or tools of the sport, once so 
well thought of, as experience and modern in¬ 
ventiveness denote their deficiencies, succumb to 
the new. The older we become in the sport of 
quail shooting our requirements vary. While 
farming alters shooting conditions, if we are real 
sportsmen for nothing in the world would we 
have the original habitat of the birds destroyed, 
but instead we are seemingly desirous of having 
our dog work in conformity with the environ¬ 
ments, and our guns must be especially built for 
field and cover shooting. 
In early years, as far as my dog was con¬ 
cerned—and myself—-I could not see any defects 
in his work. Father sometimes laughed at the 
big liver and white pointer, how he handled me 
instead of being handled by me, was the way 
he put it. Yet it demanded some little thought 
on my part to discover what he was alluding to. 
From him only I submitted criticism of my 
companion. 
Constantly I hunted with Duke. He followed 
me to school when I brought my gun with me, 
as with increase in years I gained liberties. 
After foraging around for the gleanings of the 
lunch buckets, he went to a choice spot, where 
familiarity with the room taught him few ever 
ventured near, and that was back of the teacher’s 
desk. There he slept peacefully. 
The teacher was a liberal-minded, large, jovial 
woman, and permitted this privilege to Duke and 
seldom alluded to his presence, except when he 
had audible dreams about pointing some gigantic 
bird. He made a fearful noise then, but he sub¬ 
sided as quickly as the pupils when the rule was 
once brought into play. Duke’s privilege was 
granted as a return favor for the fat quails I 
occasionally brought to teacher. 
From our farm to the school was two miles 
of great quail country all the way, my daily 
shooting making but slight inroads on the im¬ 
mense number of birds that wandered in from 
the wild timber country to the cultivated lands. 
Just as soon as the scholars were dismissed, with 
a glance at my gun the old pointer stretched him¬ 
self, and shaking all the kinks out of his frame, 
he emitted a joyous yelp and bounded for the 
fields. Those birds he well knew, and no matter 
how often they moved to other feeding places 
he found two to three coveys. 
At this period I had only an hour to shoot in 
before dark intervened. Sometimes I killed one 
bird, and on some days three—seldom more. On 
Saturday I put in a full day. And it was on 
one of these holidays that I met a man from 
town, whom I knew had once trained dogs as a 
profession. 
“Old Duke can sure find them yet with any 
dog,” he declared, “but it’s a pity the way the 
old fool breaks shot!” 
Owing to my unseemly sensitiveness about 
Duke I left the man in the field. My father 
could talk all he wanted about Duke, but there 
the line was drawn. As scon as I got home I 
asked father: “What is breaking shot?” 
With a comical allusion to 'Duke as an ex¬ 
ample father enlightened me. 
At last within the armament of Duke’s perfec¬ 
tions there was a flaw, and I had discovered 
it—breaking shot! I knew he was deaf as a 
post, but that he had another defect I was not 
aware of until then. Deafness could not be 
cured, 'but the other, a habit, certainly could be 
eradicated from him. I would stand behind him, 
and after shooting as he chased the flying bird 
I would shoot him with a light load of shot. 
To be sure there was no danger I withdrew the 
top wad of a cartridge and took out a portion of 
the No. 8 shot before replacing it. 
Like a boy, and as many men have, I reasoned 
that once alone would do the work. Early the 
following Saturday morning in a slight drizzle I 
followed the old warrior, and soon discovered 
him tacked onto birds in a thicket in a flat be¬ 
tween two small elevations. Here was my op¬ 
portunity to cure the dog! I backed off a little 
way from him, firing my right barrel, at which 
the birds flushed, and as he rushed after them I 
fired the left barrel at his hindquarters. 
From the thicket emanated a yelp of pain, and 
my heart sank within me. I regretted the act, 
yes, I regretted it before I ever withdrew the 
empties from the gun! I ran to where Duke 
had been. He was gone! I searched and 
searched, then shouted until my lungs chafed 
from the violence of the exertion. No Duke 
responded. Simultaneously it began to rain hard, 
and on its heels came a fierce storm of sleet 
from the northwest. 
Journeying home I felt contented that the old 
dog would be waiting for me on the porch. 
Would he be there? No, I anticipated it at the 
misgivings that charged me before I even got 
within the front gate. There was no need of 
looking, for Duke was not there. 
I shook off of me the wet of the storm and 
entered the house. Thank God no one asked 
questions then, for I could not have borne them. 
The weather saved me. Mother and father had 
too much knowledge of quail shooting to ask 
about luck, but Kate, the maid of all work, teased 
me, as she was glad to have “none of them little 
measly patridges to clean.” 
Little dinner did I eat. Nobody paid me any 
attention. I looked out on the porch to Duke’s 
straw-lined box, but no Duke was coiled within. 
Yet none of the family remarked at my constancy 
to that place of outlook. A hundred times I 
went to that window where his box could be 
seen, my heart swelling with conflicting emo¬ 
tions. Duke must be dead, otherwise nothing 
could prevent his return. Time and again until 
supper I faced the wind and went to the barn 
where father’s dogs were, but no Duke had ar¬ 
rived. 
At supper I ate less than at dinner, and mother 
thought I looked pale. From exposure that 
morning she attributed it, and I was ordered to 
bed. I slept on the ground floor, and before 
entering my bed I got Duke’s box and moved 
it beneath mine. If the moon ever came out I 
could see it. 
Duke must be dead. He had crawled off in his 
death agonies and died in the storm. Surely, if 
any one merited punishment for cruelty, I did! 
I formulated all kinds of self chastisements that 
I would subject myself to for the foolish act. 
One thing I would never do it again. I would 
never own another dog; I loved them too well 
and did not know how to treat them. Then, my 
little body racked with anguish. I tried to sleep. 
I could not. The same thought perpetually held 
me awake—Duke was sleeping the sleep of death 
out in the cold fields. 
The storm was abating. Occasionally a fierce 
blast flung itself at the house, but all the while 
the storm was subsiding. I looked out once more 
into the night. The fields were the white of sil¬ 
ver, as a shimmering moon broke through balls 
of white feathery clouds. And presently I heard 
a light footstep on the porch. I heard it repeated. 
I trembled. I heard it again. My light was 
turned low. I jumped out of bed to turn it up, 
but could not keep my eyes from the window. 
Was it a robber at the window? My sleep¬ 
craving eyes centered, and the cloud of perturba¬ 
tion obscuring me had dissolved. The figure at 
the window was a big dog standing on its hind 
legs; and with its forepaws on the widow sill, 
was peering in at the light. That dog was Duke! 
I rushed to the window, lifted it up and 
Duke jumped in the room. I threw my arms 
around him sobbingly, and kissed his homely 
face-and every wrinkle on it. And I sobbed and 
kissed him over again. 
Next morning I slept late. So when mother 
opened the door, and I pulled the heavy cover aside 
she laughed. For there together on the bed sleep¬ 
ing happily were her big boy and his first dog. 
(This is the first installment of a series of de¬ 
lightful stories on quail hunting, written by an 
acknowledged expert. They will be continued in 
future numbers of Forest and Stream .) 
