8 I 2 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 25, 1907. 
A Tennessee Outing.— IV. 
There was a week of it in all without one 
drop of rain after that first day. Every hour 
pleasant in the recalling and recounting, but 
more than my share of space would be taken 
for the whole story. Just a few more incidents 
selected at random from the days that followed, 
and then to the pleasant task of looking over 
that fishing tackle. 
About half a mile south of the house was a 
high hill of peculiar and symmetrical propor 
tions the top of which was said to be the habitat 
of from one to six coveys of birds, the number 
of coveys depending upon the temperament of 
the informant. Charlie had scaled its heights 
earlier in the season and declared the exertion 
fully repaid by the finding of two coveys of birds 
and the enjoyment of a grand view from the 
summit. I have a stronger predilection each 
year to do my “excelsior” stunts on the lower 
levels, but birds and view combined persuaded 
me to try the hill. 
When we started it was cool, bracing weather, 
and our guns were light. Two-thirds of the way 
up it was July 4th and our guns outweighed the 
famous old “ore bed.” I pitied old Jack Falstaff, 
although I was built on Cassius’ lines. But, it 
was worth it. Birds, view and all were up to 
my fullest expectations. 
We found a covey as we neared the top and 
sent them over to the far side. Charlie killed 
one on the flush, an accident pure and simple. 
No man could shoot where he tried with his 
heart pumping forty horsepower and his eyes full 
of perspiration. I fired my gun as an evidence 
of good faith, but as I could not see through 
my steamed glasses had to depend upon hearing 
to guide my aim. 
Arrived at the top, we rested to relax muscles 
and clear vision. Starting on, we found a second 
covey of birds which flushed wild. My compan¬ 
ion tried a lone shot at them, and then we stood 
and watched their flight, expecting them to pitch 
down into the valley. To our surprise they held 
a straieht course, high in the air, straight across 
the valley to a wooded ridge we judged to be 
three-quarters of a mile away, and still straight 
on to the second ridge more than a mile dis¬ 
tant and there we lost sight of them. In the 
matter of adaptation the little brown bird is 
among the leaders. 
In the old muzzleloader days, of which I have 
some recollection, a covey of birds flushed in a 
large field would fly to the other side, scatter 
out, and in a few minutes go to calling and run¬ 
ning about. The most ordinary dog could find 
nearly every bird a second time. In this day 
and time, when a man’s gun is always loaded, 
and he moves on immediately after flushed birds, 
they fly a long distance almost invariably to 
woods or thickets and hide so close and lie so 
still that an experienced dog frequently fails to 
find half of them again. 
“That explains our disappearing covey,” said 
Charlie after we had watched the birds out of 
sight. “We should have taken their direction 
and looked for them in the adjoining county.” 
On the other side the hill sloped away, and 
half way down, on the edge of a brush thicket, 
we found the covey first flushed. Lady had been 
swinging back and forth around the slope in 
front of us and suddenly stiffened on a point. 
1 he ground where she stood was bare and stony. 
Walking up and standing at her side I looked 
carefully on the ground in front of her and there, 
not three feet from the tip of her nose, sat a 
fine cock email as motionless as though carved 
in stone. Tt was a beautiful picture, the grace¬ 
ful dog and handsome bird, both rigid and 
motionless. After enjoying it a moment I moved 
slightly, and whir, went the bird, with font- 
others we had not seen. I drew on the big cock 
but fired too quick and missed. Not following 
my usual rule of keeping at the same bird I 
changed to another and killed with the second 
barrel. Charlie got both of his, but neither one 
was the big bird we had admired and we were 
entirely reconciled to his getting off safely. 
We found several more in the thicket, but the 
shooting was hard and most of them went off 
to keep the big bird company. The last one 
flushed, flew straight up the hill, and sliding 
safely through two loads from my companion’s 
gun, was apparently out of range, when, on a 
sudden impulse, I fired and dropped it, clean 
killed, one of the longest shots I ever made with 
a sixteen-gauge gun. Down at the lower edge 
of the thicket we found and bagged two more 
of those escaping on the first flush. One of 
these, flushing between us, and being anybody’s 
bird, we cross-fired on and killed a little too 
dead. 
Lady did not seem quite satisfied that all the 
birds in the thicket had been accounted for, and 
my friend concluded tO' back her judgment with 
further exertion, so they turned back for another 
short round. Promising to wait for them by a 
big walnut tree just beyond the fence, a wire 
abomination, I kept on down the hill. As I dis¬ 
engaged the last rusty barb from the back of 
my hunting coat and cleared the fence, I stepped 
right into a covey of big, strong flying birds that 
had selected the same spot I was making for to 
enjoy their siesta. They went up with a roar, 
startling me so I nearly fell back into the fence. 
Instinctively I threw up my gun, fired both bar¬ 
rels, and accidentally killed two birds, powder 
burning the first. 
At the sound of my broadside Charlie turned 
back and on the way stumbled on another strag¬ 
gler which he brought along. Both my birds 
were found by a kind young native, who passing 
near and hearing the shooting, had come over to 
see what it was all about. Too rattled to mark 
down I had been looking in the wrong place 
and some distance away from where he finally 
found them. 
Following up this covey, accompanied by the 
young fellow who kindly offered to help us, we 
found them again on a hillside in as hard a lot 
of cover as a man could select for his worst 
enemy to shoot in—briers and small growth of 
all kinds with now and then a deep gully. We 
did not get up many, nor did we get down many, 
but when ready to quit and get out into the 
open our average was satisfactory, considering. 
There was not much of the “lean and hungry” 
look about our game pockets when we made the 
house for dinner. 
We did not hurry out after dinner, the morn¬ 
ing having been pretty strenuous, but loafed and 
smoked until mid afternoon. Then as Lady was 
about worn out, having worked faithfully and 
industriously every day, we concluded to rest 
her and take Bob. As a matter of choice we 
would have preferred to go without any dog 
rather than take him, but felt it due him, and 
his frenzied delight when he found he was to 
go was full compensation for all the trouble he 
might cause. 
We did not go to our best cover, as the birds 
were wild enough already. “Let’s hunt the big 
thicket, in the corn field,” suggested Charlie. “I 
promised Uncle Bill a rabbit and Bob will find 
us one there.” 
This thicket was a bit of untillable land, full 
of rocks and sink holes, in the middle of an 
otherwise fertile field. Bob found the rabbit 
before we reached the thicket, but ran it there, 
and the fine race they had repaid us for bringing 
him. Going through the stalks, from which the 
corn had been gathered, it sounded like a sham 
battle, as Bob made no more effort to avoid them 
than if they had been blades of grass. It was 
a close call for bunnie, but he made the thicket. 
Arriving there, we could hear Bob threshing 
around in the small growth, occasionally giving 
vent to a roar of disappointment, and concluded 
that the rabbit was still safe. Taking up posi¬ 
tions on the edge, some distance, apart, we 
awaited developments. I finally had a glimpse 
of the game, and running a few steps to a better 
position, had my second surprise of the day by 
going full into another covey of birds. A single 
bird flew to the right, which I killed, while the 
others circled back into the thicket. After firing 
at the single I swung on the covey, which was 
flying in a direction to enter the thicket near 
where my friend was stationed, and looking over 
my gun, and seeing all clear, killed a second bird. 
At the crack of my gun Charlie popped up out 
of the tall weeds almost in line with my last 
shot and, by a quick shot, dropped the tail bird 
of the covey just as they reached cover. 
Distressed by the fact that I had fired so near 
to him, and yet feeling blameless, as I had 
looked to see if he was in sight, I inquired where 
he had been when I fired. “On the ground, flat¬ 
tened as thin as I could make myself,” was his 
reply. “I saw you turning my way, and pre¬ 
sumed you would shoot where you looked, so 
got thin as quick as I could.” 
Having had quite enough of hard going for a 
day we gathered up our birds and retreated to 
nearby high ground to await the result of Bob’s 
vigorous pursuit of the rabbit. We could plainly 
hear the crash of brush as the big dog fired him¬ 
self through dense patches of undergrowth, and 
occasionally caught glimpses of him tearing about 
at full speed. 
He finally pressed the game so closely that it 
abandoned the thicket and took refuge in a thick 
growth of weeds near by which we knew, by 
experience, to be almost impenetrable, closely 
followed by the dog. Back and forth, round and 
round through this they tore with a sound and 
motion so like a storm at sea that Charlie de¬ 
clared he felt symptoms of seasickness. With 
a final desperate burst of speed Bob caught the 
rabbit and brought it out to' us. I fully agreed 
with my friend when he said: 
“If it affords Uncle Bill the entertainment it 
has us it will have been a very useful rabbit.” 
As we strolled back home, watching Bob run 
over everything that came in his way, Charlie 
observed: “I am orthodox and have never be¬ 
lieved the theory of transmigration worthy of 
the discussion it has engendered, but if there is 
a metempsychosis Bob is the present abiding 
place of the greatest football soul that ever har¬ 
rowed the gridiron.” 
That night we added a very generous contri¬ 
bution to the collection of birds in the spring 
house to be reserved for the home folks. 
And now for that perfect half hour, the 
prettiest piece of work that I ever saw three 
sportsmen (counting the dog) do. It may savor 
of egotism, but as Governor Peck once said, 
when printing his speech at a banquet: “What’s 
the use of owning a newspaper if a fellow can¬ 
not print his own speech in it.” And so with 
your own story. 
I did not do it all, or even the best of it, any¬ 
how. It was well along in the afternoon, about 
an hour and a half by sun, as the natives would 
say, and we were working down a hillside in new 
territory. Lady was some distance in advance 
and crossing a bit of cleared ground got close on 
a covey of birds that began to flush just as she 
came to a stand. They were apparently very 
little startled and rose irregularly, one or two 
at a time, until they had all gone over a line 
of heavy timber near by, growing along the 
banks of a creek, and dropped down on a sedge 
grass flat, inclosed on three sides by a bend of 
the creek. 
Climbing down the steep high bank, and cross¬ 
ing the creek on a convenient log. we found the 
conditions too good to be true. The ground lay 
