An October Morning. 
It was the last week in October, 1873 . in Io ' va - 
A little before it was fairly daylight the man 
with a gun climbed to the top of a straw stack 
which stood on the top of a knoll in the middle 
of the vast prairie. He was full of the strength 
of young manhood and his mind had not yet 
been oppressed by the misfortunes that attend 
the progress of life, but was always ready to 
enjoy the good things the gods might send him. 
The possibility of future troubles seemed so 
far away that no thought was given them. By 
the man’s side sat a beautiful pointer, with un¬ 
usually large dark brown ears, smooth as the 
finest satin, and with large eyes expressive of 
her intelligence. For three years the man and 
the dog had been partners, and they under¬ 
stood each other perfectly. They had been 
comrades through hundreds of days spent afield. 
The light of the coming day increased enough 
to show flocks of ducks high in the air, and a 
little later the sunlight could be seen flashing 
from their wings, although as yet the sun itself 
was not in sight. _ . 
There seemed no bounds to the prairie. It 
was limitless in every direction; a boundless 
plain of dead grass whitened by hoar frost. 
Only here and there a low knoll, and an oc¬ 
casional patch of corn or stubble broke the uni¬ 
versal sameness. Surely it was the biggest 
place in the world. Half a mile away a flock 
of prairie chickens greeted the sun with their 
booming, and their curious squawks and coo- 
ings. Flora, the dog, heard them and _ be¬ 
came alert; then looked at the man and whined. 
He smiled and said, ‘‘\es, Flora, old girl, I 
hear them, but we can’t get them yet; lie down 
in the straw and get warm.” She was-shivering 
with the frosty chill of the morning. For 
some time they sat on the straw stack and 
waited. At last the chickens rose almost as 
one bird a hundred feet and then sailed a half 
mile to a patch of corn. ‘‘Now, Flora,” said 
the man, “we will go to breakfast. That bunch 
of chickens will stay there for two hours; we 
will let them have their fill before disturbing 
them. It will be the last breakfast that some 
of them will ever need.’ 
Man and dog went sliding down the side 
of the stack and took their way to the house, 
and breakfasted and then returned again to the 
stack to watch the chickens. They sat there 
for an hour, and then went after the birds. 
They had barely entered the corn when the 
birds rose and took wing across the prairie. 
They flew low, and the background of a low 
hill a half mile away made it hard to follow 
their flight. Two or three times they were lost 
sight of against the background, but presently 
the flash of a wing was seen and the flight could 
be followed. At last they seemed to be down, 
or would have seemed so to an unpracticed eye, 
but the man knew they were still on the wing 
and watched and strained his sight until on the 
side of the hill he saw the white flash of the 
under side of many wings as the birds dropped 
into the grass on the sunny hillside. Still the 
man kept his eyes on the spot where the birds 
went down. Presently he looked beyond the 
place and noted a little clump of weeds in line 
with the birds. Then he searched the internett¬ 
ing land for some mark in line with the birds. 
A little patch of lighter colored grass served 
the purpose. He looked again, carefully re¬ 
cording the marks in his memory, until he was 
sure he could remember them all. Then he 
turned and said, “Now, Flora, we will go to that 
little pond in the middle of the cornfield over 
yonder, and perhaps we will get some mallards. 
We will not disturb the chickens until about 
10:30; by that time they will be somewhat 
scattered and you will have a lot of fun trail¬ 
ing them, and I will have a lot of sport shoot¬ 
ing them as you find them.” 
As they walked through the grass, Flora was 
given liberty to hunt, and she ranged over the 
prairie at a flying gallop that showed how good 
she felt. Presently she flushed a chicken which 
rose fifty yards from her before she got a smell 
of it. She came slowly back to the man, show¬ 
ing in every motion an abject apology for flush¬ 
ing that bird, and expecting punishment for the 
fault. The man did not punish her; he merely 
told he to go more slowly and carefully, and she 
went to work again, not ranging so widely and 
going very cautiously. Finally she stopped, 
wagging her tail and looking back. The man 
knew she had found chicken trails and followed 
her. She went on carefully and slowly, and 
after trailing for a long distance, a chicken 
flushed forty yards ahead of the man and dog. 
It was rather a long shot and the man fired 
too quickly, but the second shot tipped a wing, 
and after long trailing, Flora found the bird 
and brought it in. 
The approach to the pond in the cornfield 
was made very quietly and against the wind. 
Under cover of the corn stalks they came 
within a hundred yards of the pond; then as 
they drew nearer, they lay flat on the ground 
and dragged themselves along. It was back¬ 
breaking work, but there was no other way. 
When they got within gunshot and in plain 
sight of the pond, nothing was to be seen. 
During the summer the pond had been dry 
enough to grow a rank crop of smartweed and 
the tops of the weeds stood above the water. 
After waiting a little and seeing nothing, the 
man coughed. Instantly there appeared above 
the tops of the weeds what looked like hundreds 
of stumps of bushes that had been cut off. They 
were as still as if they were really stumps. 
They showed a few inches above the tops of 
the weeds and looked to be an inch or more in 
diameter. In the sunlight many of them ap¬ 
peared to be more or less covered with green 
moss. There seemed to be hundreds of them. 
In his days of inexperience the man had over¬ 
looked a few lots of stumps just like these, but 
he now knew these were the heads and necks 
of mallards. Selecting the place where they 
were thickest, he moved the gun very slowly 
for that spot and “let ’em have it,’ then fired 
the second barrel into the brown as they rose 
in flight. They were not more than three feet 
above the water when the second charge was 
fired, and had scarcely begun to scatter. What 
a splashing and spluttering there was in that 
little pond! 
Flora went in and brought them out, one at 
a time, to the man, until he had nine. Ihen she 
went round the pound searching for cripples 
that might have tried to escape by leaving the 
pond, as a mallard will usually try to do. If 
crippled in the water, a mallard will almost in¬ 
variably leave the water, or if crippled near the 
water, it will try to sneak into the water. Flora 
found three winged birds. The man said, That 
was great, wasn't it, Flora? The greatest piece 
of luck we ever had. Twelve mallards; about 
thirty-six pounds of ’em. Guess we will take 
them to the house before we go after those 
chickens.” 
“When they reached the house they did not 
stop to rest, but got a drink of water and the 
man removed some of his clothing, for the sun 
was warm, and the ducks were heavy. They re¬ 
turned to the spot where they had stood when 
the chickens flew from them, so as to make 
sure to get them rightly located, for the general 
sameness of the prairie makes it very easy to 
miss a spot not carefully located at the start. 
The man again fixed the spot by his maiks, 
and then started for it, keeping the marks con¬ 
stantly in range. Flora wanted to go at her 
usual rapid gait and wide range, but the man 
kept her in until it was about time for the 
birds to be found; then told her to hunt, but to 
keep in closely. “Careful, careful now,” and 
man and dog slowly approached the place. 
Flora held her head high and the man held his. 
gun at “ready,” for now, at any moment, wild 
flushing birds might be expected. 
They started—two or three dozen of them; 
but they rose fifty yards away and the man 
did not shoot. Then a single bird rose thirty 
yards distant, and was neatly dropped into the 
grass. Flora wanted to retrieve it, but was 
made to walk slowly just ahead of the man. As 
they neared the spot, another bird rose within 
range and was missed by both barrels because 
the shooter was under too much excitement. 
Near the dead bird Flora found a trail, and 
following it slowly and carefully through the 
grass for a hundred yards, two chickens flushed, 
clucking as they went. They were easy shots. 
At the report of the gun a half-dozen mor e 
took wing while the man stood there with an 
empty gun. He paid no attention to the flight 
of these birds, for it would be useless he knew 
to try to mark any of them. They were gone 
for good, as were the first lot that flew. 
Flora found other trails, and followed them 
to a finish. Sometimes the birds flushed wild 
and at others just at a nice distance. Most of 
the birds that rose within range were killed 
and a number of the wild ones shot at. Of the 
long shots a few were fine kills, while others 
were missed. When the whole ground had 
been carefully gone over and there seemed to 
