October, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 
577 
COMBING THE DUNES FOR GRAY FEATHERS 
THE PRAIRIE CHICKEN, IN SPITE OF ODDS THAT WOULD TEND TO NUMBER 
IT WITH THE DODO, IS HOLDING ITS OWN AND STILL CALLS TO OLD TIMERS 
^ t\\ 7 ELL, kid, let’s tumble over a few 
\Y chickens.” What I said to the 
old prairie homesteader that 
golden morning over twenty years ago was 
amply expressed not by word of mouth but 
by the perpetual smile on my sun cured 
face and by the fortitude shown as the 
blue stem and 
sand burrs of 
mature October 
carved their 
initials in my 
frail pink legs 
and feet. 
Since then I 
have lived in 
prairie chicken 
heaven each re¬ 
curring autumn 
and if there are 
no pinnated 
grouse in the 
diamond wil¬ 
lows on the 
other side of 
the river of 
life, one dis¬ 
ciple of the red 
god of the wil¬ 
derness is go¬ 
ing to attempt 
to introduce a few aim-men resolutions. 
Cheering tidings from the sand hill re¬ 
gions come apace and Bandit Bill will re¬ 
ceive another wallop below the pie belt if 
the song of rancher and farmer is but half 
true. Range riders and agriculturists by 
the score have declared that the green 
stalks masking the secluded portions of 
this region are chock full of quarter-grown 
chicks, so the hearts of thousands of 
smokepole artists ought to beat a merry 
rime from now until the curtain is rolled 
from the stage of gilded Autumn. 
The tocsin of strife has temporarily 
taken away thousands of stalkers of wild¬ 
fowl. While these heroic sons of the com¬ 
mon mother, Liberty, play for big game in 
foreign wilds, thinned flocks of field and 
forest are bound to multiply like Yankees 
at a free-for-all fight. 
Education of Mr. and Mrs. Average 
Shooter and the casting of water tight laws 
have whittled needle sharp the barbs on 
the fence around the chicken orchard. It 
required hundreds of suits of patience to 
drill the average fondler of twin cylinders 
nto regard for the fact that other hu¬ 
mans are likely to follow in our footsteos 
ind hunger for fat fowls of forest and 
field, but insofar as the grouse realm is 
concerned a large shipment of diplomas is 
lue this very minute. 
The high cost of ammunition has a lit- 
le, and the favorable nesting weather to 
late has a great deal to do with the prolific 
iropensities so far exhibited in nature’s 
howcase this season. 
The writer has unmounted mountain 
By JOHN BERNARD O'SULLIVAN 
lions, shot wild turkeys, partridges, quail, 
deer, antelope, trailed foxes until our 
tongue curled up like a withered cucumber, 
ran jackass rabbits with hounds, killed 
cougars, catamounts, bull moose, republi¬ 
cans and democrats and in fact every kind 
of game from a Kansas flea to a New 
York mosquito, and we’re still placing our 
money on the gray lady of the prairies— 
the chicken. 
Y OU take it along in the last chapter 
of Autumn when the whisper of Win¬ 
ter transforms the murky pools in 
yonder creek to polished chunks of dia¬ 
monds, and magic calls like soft cries from 
wandering companions come out of forest 
halls; when field and meadow are fringed 
with precious traces of red and saffron and 
you and your dog wander to and from 
w l .e you go into a sort of twilight sleep 
until—until a wild, man-shy prairie chick¬ 
en jumps up into space a..d all the blood in 
you tries to climb to the top of the ladder 
to see the fun! 
After the gymnastics, you go through 
some real motions and an explosion dies in 
the western foot-hills. Few chicken hunt¬ 
ers ever get over the electric thrill they 
experience at the rise of a bird. One time 
I and my wife were stalking a covey of 
old birds. I carried the gun. I was sup¬ 
posed to be ready to fire, for we had no 
dog and depended on foot-luck to elevate 
a target. All the birds jumped. I threw 
down the gun for some unexplained rea¬ 
son, and shouted at the top of my voice, 
“Why the deuce, Mary, don’t you shoot?” 
Mary said something about an unprece¬ 
dented corn-fed contortion and—I knocked 
down four chickens while she said it! 
When white men came into this region 
chickens were so plentiful they received 
scant attention. Twenty-five years ago re¬ 
frigerators were installed along the rail¬ 
way for the purpose of freezing them for 
export to the large citties. While they 
are not as plentiful now as then and may 
never become so, there are frail barriers 
to prevenf a return of the days of plenty. 
About the same amount of soil is under 
cultivation. Pot hunting is taboo. Good 
laws prevail. 
Men are not 
the men we 
were yesterday, 
and a dozen 
other tenden¬ 
cies give reason 
to believe this 
magnifi cent 
s p e c i men of 
meadow and 
stubble will be¬ 
come more and 
more abundant. 
A corking good 
game protec¬ 
tive association 
at this point 
attends to the 
wants of soon- 
ers. For one 
to break laws 
now means a 
post graduate 
course in a local bull corral and frequently 
the addition of a fine high enough to buy 
milady’s spring bonnet. 
The favorite method of pursuing the 
grouse is the way of the pioneer. A spring 
wagon—called a democrat—(a socialist 
might be substituted, but prohibitionist— 
not by a jugful of chain lightning!) is 
the accepted form of vehicle, a team of 
ponies, twelve gauge shotguns, shells car¬ 
rying any load fancied by the shooter, 
khaki clothing with leggings to ward off 
sand-burrs, patience and a couple of well 
trained bird dogs. 
Not over 15 years ago my brother Dan¬ 
iel—personally known to every prairie 
chicken on the Irish reserve as Dandelion 
—used to walk out and kill 15 or 20 
chicks without the aid of a dog. He used 
to root them out with his feet. Long ex¬ 
perience taught Daniel just where and how 
to plant his feet. 
A method in some favor called for two 
saddle horses, a buggy and three men, one 
of whom rode in the rig and did the shoot¬ 
ing. The author of this paper once sat in 
the rig. Just once. The boys on the 
horses each took an end of a 200 foot 
length of wire. These were fastened to 
the saddle horns. 
Big Me, with courage enough to try any¬ 
thing once, took command of the vehicle. 
The idea was to scare the birds out of the 
long grass by dragging the wire through it. 
Somehow the wire got behind the buggy. 
Chickens began to rise by the dozen. In 
my anxiety to show my prowess I mounted 
(continued on page 621) 
Few chicken hunters ever forget the electric thrill at the rise of a bird 
