
Leave him alone and he may take us to 
them.” Scott was showing more inter- 
est in the ‘long fielder.’ Cotton had 
also come back and the two dogs went 
towards the far end of the woods. Just 
at the edge and close to the road, Jake 
pointed. We could feel his intensity. 
Every hair on him seemed electrified. 
“T told you so!” Scott’s face beamed 
with excitement. Cotton was slinking 
up on Jake a few inches ata time. He 
seemed envious and wanted to get in 
front. Even if he had never worked 
with another dog, he really had no in- 
tention of going in, which was shown 
when he stopped almost nose-even with 
Jake and held. It made a beautiful, 
Osthaus-like picture in nature’s own 
frame—each dog in his characteristic 
pose, full of individuality. We flushed 
the birds and as a good sized covey rose, 
Scott brought down two—one hard shot 
through the branches which made him 
swing his gun quickly at right angle, 
while Gib picked off a straightaway. 
We noted the general direction the scat- 
tered birds flew but we never ran across 
another one of them possibly because 
of the high wind which made scenting: 
conditions on singles poor. It made us 
more deliberate in aiming when we did 
get up birds, for we felt we might not 
have another chance at them. 
E walked a piece up the puddly, 
wheel tracked road when Gib 
stopped suddenly and pointed with his 
gun to the dried grasses along a fence. 
A whole covey was there feeding un- 
awares of our presence. Jake got nose 
of them and slowly creeping up, pointed 
with one front paw held up from the 
ground. We flushed the birds and as 
the shooting was in the open, we all 
had fine shots and brought down sev- 
eral. The birds flew back into the 
woods. Scott cleared the fence with a 
bound, the dogs following. 
only crippled his bird and he was just 
getting ready to go into the woods to 
look for it when a farmer yelled at him 
Gib had | 
A roadside point—quick work is needed here 
from up the road and started towards 
us. 
“Don’t allow no hunting, young man.” 
“T’ve got a bird down in there. Can 
I go look for it?” 
“Sure,” said the farmer. 
Cotton found the wounded bird for 
Gib, who in the meantime had in- 
formed Scott of the farmer’s wishes 
and calling the dogs, who did not want 
to leave, we made our way out to the 
road where the farmer stood chewing 
on a straw. 
“T take keer them birds myself in the 
winter and some of them even come and 
eat with my chickens. I ain’t got so 
many as I usta have,” the farmer said 
as he started walking back up the road. 
“Maybe,” said Scott, “that’s because 
they haven’t been shot into lately. 
They inbreed and die off and those that 
become accustomed to eating with the 
chickens will lose their wariness and 
be an easy prey for hawks!” But the 
farmer continued to walk on, shaking 
his head unbelievingly. 
We were in posted country. Signs 
were everywhere. Not the rough hand- 
made, uneven scrawled sort marked 
in crude letters 
and cruder En- 
glish on a_ piece 
wood and _ which 
seem to fit in 
naturally with the 
rest of the scenery, 
but these were star- 
tling, bold black 
printed ones on the 
order of those got- 
ten out by the Health Department to 
tack on houses where they have a con- 
tagious disease. We found out later, 
these could be bought for ten cents a 
piece at the newspaper office and the 
farmers around there had surely been 
to town shopping. We stopped long 
enough in front of one of these formid- 
able looking signs to try to explain to 
Jake, who seemed to want to do some 

investigating, why he could not jump 
over the fence. 
E met Homer at noon. He re- 
ported having seen eight ducks in 
flight on the river but they were not 
in gun range. A white sun was try- 
ing to break through the grey sky and 
the wind had died down. We stopped 
to rest and while eating consider what 
would be the best country to choose 
for our afternoon’s shooting. The 
dogs, after having gone thru with 
a tough morning’s work, were rest- 
ing. Jake’s muzzle was so _ criss- 
crossed with briar scratches that it 
looked like a railroad map and his 
underthighs were blood red from the 
rough going. Cotton was full of burrs 
which he tore off along with chunks of 
hair, leaving bloody, tender spots, for 
it was the first of the season and his 
feathers were still heavy. The dogs’ 
eyes were inflamed and watery. We 
examined them and found bits of spear 
grass and seeds which we carefully took 
out using their long ears for wipers. 
“Let’s make for those hills yonder,” 
said Homer. “Looks birdy in_ be- 
tween here and there.” We had not 
gone far across the 
bottoms whenI saw 
the tall grasses 
wave and caught a 
glimpse of some- 
thing jump which 
I at first believed’ 
to be one of the 
dogs but when I 
saw Homer raise 
his gun and shoot, 
I changed my _ mind. “Say, ~ did 
you see him? A fine, red fox! I 
bowled him over but my load wasn’t 
heavy enough—just tickled him.” Al- 
though we spent considerable time hunt- 
ing for him, he was too wise for us. 
It was mostly a day of woods shoot- 
ing and the shots were all hard, for a 
quail among trees shows his dexterity 
and keen instinct of protection by art- 
Page 708 
