524 FOREST AND STREAM November, 1917 
THE OPENING DAY ON BOB WHITE 
TIMELY ADVICE ON STOPPING THE GAMEST PROPOSITION A DOG 
EVER POINTED, TWENTY GAUGE GUNS, POINTER VS. SETTER, ETC. 
BY JAY RIPLEY 
< 6 ' I 'HAT is really a good looking 
pointer/’ bluntly asserted my in¬ 
evitable shooting companion, Mac. 
But immediately this statement was modi¬ 
fied. “If there is such a thing as a good 
looking pointer!” 
“Well, you are pretty well versed in my 
opinion on setters!” I laughed. The 
grudging admission from Mac was proof 
that something in the makeup of the new 
pointer dog had caught his eye. The temp¬ 
tation for retort was uncontrollable on 
my part. I felt it incumbent to be as un¬ 
sparing of remarks on setters whenever an 
opportunity presented itself. “Mac, I’ve 
got to admit something in behalf of a cer¬ 
tain setter; though that big dog of yours 
has never shown himself as a wonder on 
birds, for size he wins the cup! If you 
ever get tired in the field, he would be an 
ideal mount to ride home.” 
At once my sturdy companion’s sneers 
at pointers subsided. He could discern all 
kinds of faults in the short haired dogs, 
but when one merely suggested the lack 
of some potential in his monstrous tri¬ 
colored setter, Jocko, purple-red spots 
came into his fat cheeks. He swelled all 
over with indignation, then poured forth 
all the venom he had stored against point¬ 
ers on the head of the luckless offender. 
Remembering all this in no manner de¬ 
terred me from annually inviting Mac to 
open the quail season with me. It would 
have been against my custom, family tra¬ 
ditions, and a host of other things to have 
neglected it—and had I been so remiss 
Mac would have been the first to have re¬ 
sented it. He would have come anyway. 
Though for some inexplicable reason we 
were always quarreling about dogs, for 
both the season would have been sadly de¬ 
ficient in something without the company 
of each other. Our likes in guns were 
similar, our shooting did not vary much, 
and we mutually agreed that quails were 
the greatest of upland game birds and the 
gamest proposition a dog ever pointed. 
F OR the time of the year, the 
first day of November, in 
the middle states, it was a 
very cold day. The sun shone 
brightly on rag weed, sedge, 
and brier fields, but the ground 
underfoot remained frozen. 
“Gee, but this is the best 
opening day we ever had!” ex¬ 
claimed Mac, stamping his feet 
and blowing his breath into his 
cupped hands. “It has always 
been too warm for bird work.” 
“You are sure right, old 
tramp,” I joined in gleefully. 
Master, the new, racy-look- 
ing black and white pointer, 
cleared the rail fence in front 
of us apparently in a single 
bound, and shot down with all 
speed for the first swale. Mac’s 
big setter, jocko, followed. We walked 
west, as Jocko, swinging his big bulk in 
lumbering, weaving pace, cast out wide to 
the right across a rag weed field. 
“Jay, that black and white is pointing 
a field sparrow or false pointing down 
near the branch!” Mac called my atten¬ 
tion. It would never have done for Mac 
to admit that Master had found the first 
covey. That must come later. His dog 
was far across the right hill. 
“Anyway,” I said, blinking in an effort 
to restrain a smile, “we’ll go to him!” I 
was positive Mac was just as anxious as 
I to pull on the first birds of the year. 
We stepped briskly down into the swale, 
knee-high with sedge and seed-laden fox¬ 
tail. The black and white was pointing, 
head high, against windfall a-quiver. We 
shoved our loads of 54 ounce of 8 shot 
and 2^4 drams of bulk smokeless powder 
into the little twenties. 
“You ought to cure him of false point¬ 
ing sparrows,” remarked Mac querulously. 
It was his last, mild protest against the 
possibility of my dog pointing first. 
“No—not this time, Mac. Do you see 
those vibrant, distended nostrils, and that 
semi-hypnotic glare to those eyes? That’s 
birds—you can’t fool me!” 
W ITHOUT indulging in more words 
we strode a pace in advance of 
Master. A big covey of quails 
roared into flight. Mac made a pretty 
double. I missed with the first barrel, and 
barely managed to knock down a bird at 
long range with the left. Master found 
my cripple, and later assisted Mac in re¬ 
trieving his lost birds. 
“Those birds took over the ridge where 
Jocko is. We will find him false point¬ 
ing this time!” I said. 
Mac refused to recognize the jibe. 
From the top of the rise we perceived 
Jocko’s head above the billowing sedge. 
He was seated on his haunches. He had 
been pointing so long, he had decided to 
perform in a facile way. He was certain 
that in this way the birds would lay well 
for he was an experienced workman. 
Master came up with a rush and backed 
instantly, but got just a wee bit jealous, 
and crowded the old dog too closely, put¬ 
ting up the birds just a little bit before 
we were in range. 
“False pointing, nothing!” Mac splut¬ 
tered, fairly angry at Master’s over¬ 
anxiety. “If a pointer could ever be made 
to do anything right, I never saw it!” 
I had to laugh just then as Mac began to 
break into a tirade on the pointer tribe. 
Master, vffio had never swerved from his 
steadiness after the birds had flushed, sud¬ 
denly jumped forward in the sedge, and 
walked high-stepping with pride over to 
Mac with a crippled bird in his mouth, 
and dropped it at Mac’s feet. My shooting 
companion only grimaced, but it signified: 
“Who would have thought it in a pointer?” 
B OTH dogs worked splendidly. The 
next covey they pointed was in an 
abandoned orchard, and Mac and I 
missed. This was a source of much 
amusement, for when the dogs again 
pointed them in a dense thicket of sumac, 
where the shooting at singles was actually 
difficult, we accomplished respectable runs. 
After this the dogs took out in a hot race 
through a pasture of considerable acreage, 
here and there studded with brief patches 
of rag weed, but most of it destitute of 
cover. Jocko widened his cast, then 
roaded, high-headed. Presently a covey 
flushed ahead of him, hurtling to the tim¬ 
ber. Owing to the barrenness of the 
ground it was a pardonable flush. He con¬ 
tinued on, much rattled at his failure to 
hold the birds. 
Mac saw the old rascal’s state and bel¬ 
lowed madly at him: “Steady boy. 
S-t-e-a-d-y boy. Steady!” 
But the setter was temperamental just 
then, and succumbed to his bad spell. He 
galloped wildly to a small rise, again 
pointed, and the birds as before would not 
lay. Once more Jocko was inordinately 
restless, exhibiting the one 
weak part in his work—inability 
to hold birds in sparse cover. 
Then that black and white 
came up at full steam; without 
seeing the setter, he froze on 
the birds. Again they ran. He 
was ahead of Jocko. The setter 
saw, and momentarily settled, 
but started again roading the 
birds as they continued to run. 
The pointer immediately grasped 
the situation. He worked brisk¬ 
ly to the right into a wide cir¬ 
cle, and just as he had it half 
completed, he nailed the birds 
in a crouching point. 
Jocko, utterly bewildered at 
these tactics, ran around a few 
times, but finally backed the 
youngster in a half-hearted way. 
