58 
FOREST AND STREAM 
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LADY JUNE LOSES INTEREST 
BUT THE MASTER HAD AN AMAZINGLY 
ENJOYABLE HUNT OVER FAMILIAR GROUND 
By Will C. Parsons. 
N a honey-locust across 
the way, a bluebird— 
advance scout in the 
Army of Spring—sits hud¬ 
dled, his back to a chill¬ 
ing rain that drives from 
the south-east. The ditches 
along the 
roads are 
running full, 
silt laden 
and foam- 
flecked. It is 
not a day to 
fare afield, 
though there 
is the faint¬ 
est vernal odor in the air. 
Over yonder, in the corner, oil covered 
inside and out, and encased in canvas and 
flannel, the little twenty-bore leans, her 
good times over for the nonce. 
Rods, lines, flies, and reels, have been 
gone over again and again, and are ready 
for the first call of the river. 
Before the fire, stretched out so that 
every muscle feels the grateful heat, Lady 
June, the Gordon setter, dozes and dreams. 
Now she utters muffled yelps, and her 
legs jerk -spasmodically: again, her tail 
thumps the floor: visions of the chase has 
she. 
An old hunting coat is her bed: is it the 
delicious aroma from the stained pockets 
that has the psychological effect on her 
doggish sub-consciousness ? 
With a half sleet beating a tattoo on the 
window panes, it is the time to fill the pipe, 
close the eyes, and drift back over the de¬ 
lightful times two 1 months gone, when 
Lady June, Miss Twenty-bore, and I wan¬ 
dered through the crisp herbage, and then 
back home again, sometimes with a little 
game: sometimes with arrow-points, flint 
chippings, birds’ nests, and the sepulchre¬ 
like chrysalis that later will be opened by 
the life within, to free the moths and but¬ 
terflies, to live their short allotment of the 
span, in colored splendor. 
From out the maze of brush and brier, 
stubble and rag-weed, quag and shore, one 
typical day (for this Ohio locality) centers 
the thought. The bag was not large: it 
never is. Here is the day:— 
L ADY JUNE, Miss Twenty-bore and I 
scale the west fence and are in Neigh¬ 
bor Blank’s weed-grown orchard. If 
we find any game, the list is short: the 
wary duck, the leaping rabbit, the silent 
woodcock. Of the birds, there is but the 
remotest chance that one of either will be 
seen: the spot-light-auto-hunters (who 
prowl by night and who ought to be in jail) 
coupled with the heavy skirmish lines of 
the “first day” shooters, have thinned the 
rabbits. The prospect before Lady June, 
Miss Twenty-bore and I is not alluring if 
killing were the only thing. 
Ohio quail being protected, and other 
game birds in our vicinity so scare as to 
preclude any field work, Miss June has, 
perforce, been taught the reprehensible and 
un-setter-like habit of hunting the leaping, 
loose jointed brush-heap and drain tile in¬ 
habitants. This is sad, but true. 
Neighbor Blank has raised a fine crop 
of white-top, brier, burdock, golden-rod, 
wire-grass, and other botanical phenomena, - 
but—he seems to have entirely forgotten 
the main crop, to wit—rabbits. 
Whoa-a-a-a—! 
And, from the last fence corner a long- 
ears leaps from his form and dashes di¬ 
rectly through a flock of chickens sunning 
themselves in an adjacent field. The hens 
fly hither and yon : no chance to shoot, and 
Br’er Bunny, suddenly tacking, slips under 
the barn and the'umpire calls “safe.” 
A N alfalfa field over there looks prom¬ 
ising, especially on the southern slope 
where it is still green and rank. But, 
a lank, spotted, sad-hound of no lineage or 
apparent destiny, is pottering about, bellow¬ 
ing like a bull-calf bereft of mother. To 
complete the picture, two youths armed 
with “single-barrels” squat like sentinels 
keeping watch and ward. Fine chance for 
game there! 
A blackberry covered hillside is next 
drawn: Lady June, whimpering and mildly 
protesting, being sent in. Nothing comes 
out save a pair of cardinals, indignant at 
being disturbed, and a quiet junco or two. 
Rails, torn from the fence near at hand, 
and hurled down to break the briers, ex¬ 
plain the absence of Molly. The single 
“bar’ls” have been at work there. The corn 
bottom below is also a blank, except for 
a most luxuriant yield of cockle-burrs, that 
soon make Lady June’s ears stand out in 
a way that Nature never for a moment in¬ 
tended. That is one trouble with a long¬ 
haired dog—or “fiogges.” 
The “nothing doing” sign is also dis¬ 
played (after investigation) in the weeds 
along the dike that keeps the Olen- 
tangy River from encroaching too much on 
the bottom lands. A negro, husking, grins 
as he volunteers the information that just 
a while back about a dozen of Columbus’ 
Senegambians, accompanied by a sundry 
and various assortment of mongrels, have 
gone through said weeds in close forma¬ 
tion and burning much black powder. The 
result of the gun-fire is not reported, but 
one skirmisher is limping badly and saying 
things dear old Forest and, Stream would 
not print. That is one result of hunting in 
“bunches” with people who shoot “whar 
de bresh move”! 
VERHEAD, a gaunt crow scolds: in 
a dead beech, a flock of bluejays are 
making day life miserable for a little 
screech-owl, who, his mottled back against 
the trunk, is swelled out to twice the nor¬ 
mal as he hisses and scolds at his torment¬ 
ors. Maybe he deserves all he is getting. 
That is not a question for Lady June, Miss 
Twenty-bore and me to decide. 
Along about here the patient reader lays 
down his magazine and sighs, “Why don’t 
this fellow tell about the game he killed?” 
Patient reader, I could have killed a doz¬ 
en rabbits with a dozen shells, and all first 
barrel shots, if this was but a tale of the 
pipe: but it isn’t. 
By this time, Lady June, whose tongue 
is hanging out like six inches of red flannel, 
makes for the river, and flops down in the 
shallows, lapping her fill. 
Her coat is better water-proofed than 
mine. Ugh-h-h—! 
A thin skin of ice appears where the con¬ 
crete arches of the bridge cast their linger¬ 
ing shadows: a king-fisher springs his rat¬ 
tle as he flashes past. He too has a hardy 
coat. 
The automobiles by the east side of the 
bridge tell the trio that others are hunting 
this side, beating through the tall weeds. 
The other side for us! Appears, a weedy 
bottom, with standing corn still unhusked. 
Ought to be something in there, surely. In 
goes Lady June, her black flag whipping 
like a pennant in a gale. 
I do not like hunting “sight unseen” with 
any dog, but whistle as I may, brings no' 
leaping, snappy-eyed companion *to heel for 
further instruction. 
Where IS that dog? 
Back and forth through that corn I go. 
A rabbit leaps away, allowing one quick 
shot from the hip. Down he is: up he is: 
gone he is! 
“Where in seven-eighths of an ounce of 
shot IS June?” 
Tying my red bandanna to a corn stalk 
to mark the place where Br’er Rabbit was 
last seen, I quarter the field for my erst¬ 
while recalcitrant four-legged companion. 
