Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-09-23

cthcre. They were good fifty yards but | reckoned on double. Pulling on tho first saw bunch of feathers fly and his legs drop responsive to the charge of Mo- skot that he had received, but he declined to stop, so gave him the other barrel. Un- mistakably I did him both times, but he kopt
 on travelling, and went for at least half
 mile before he stopped. ! marked him
 down pretty carefully and determined to
 look him up when we got there, as he went
 our way. A few hundred yards further we
 flushed pair of chickens that got up about
 thirty yards from us and went of with
 prodigious whirr At the crack of the first
 barrel had the pleasure of seeing one
 come down stone dead, and rapidly cover
 ing the second bird I pulled on him. At
 the report he wavered ill his flight, dropped
 sailed on fully five hundred yards, finally
 alighting just beyond group of small
 trees. We started in his pursuit after
 gathering the dead birds. Duke, with
 some of the ginger taken out of him by his
 wild running, was now working beautifully,
 and was picture as he ranged ahead of us.
 When we got to where we had marked
 down the wounded bird, stopped and sent
 Duke on to find him. He ranged the ground
 carefully, and George beat 1t thoroughly, yet no bird flushed.
 Strange" thought I, and started to light a cigar. As did so my eyes fell on pe- culiar looking gray spot in 8 bunch of grass near me, and within five feet stood Duke, rigid as a statue, and gazing in tently at tho same gray spot. Not dreaming what 1t was stepped forward, and the gray spot de- veloped into my wounded prairie chicken, now fast dying and barely able to make a last protesting struggle as picked him up.
 Much encouraged by this good luck we trn6pn6 a1nn0 n match nf Ynrairia which in the spring becomes slough, and Is a favorite place tor mallards. A bunch of long grass attracted Dukes attention. With his head well up to catch the scent of game, he approached it cautiously, and I, with my finger on the trigger and my heart beating hard, watched every blade of grass. Suddenly, with a loud whirr, half dozen chickens burst from the cover, and to my excited eyes seemed already a hundred yards away. The first barrel was clean miss, but with the second doubled up g bird as dead as rock. I should have killed two, as they were in easy range, but the warm flesh of the one I picked up was quite gratifying to the touch.
 We were now drawing near to the place I had marked down my first wounded bird, and suddenly saw Dukes tail straighten out and his whole body become rigid as he drew to the point which every sportsman so tuO w NulCu oCCS every uTOp of blood on a mad race of excitement. I looked carefully to the safety-guard of my gun, stepped forward few yards and bade Duke sput him up." The dog sprang forward, caught the chicken in his mouth and brought him to me. The bird had flown as far as possible and fallen stone dead where I had marked him down. A couple of hundred yards further on chicken flushed wild and gave me a crossing shot. l cut him down with broken wing at fully eighty yards, and was highly elated when Duke retrieved and proudly brought him in. A thorough beating of the ground in that patch of prairie failed to develop any more birds, and we retraced our steps to where we had first found the chickens. A short distance beyond the clump of trees from under which the first lot CT birds had