The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-24
AHA OF 4 WOUNDED BIRD
 WILLIAMS PICTURE
Eined Hunter Cured by an Experience With a Grouse
 He Had Shot.

.Dlrd Tn AppIeton's Magazine for 'tember. We quote part of his &C., .ht:
 'he bird at which the boy had fired tst down it's legs and wabbled as if : Ut to fall; then recovered Itself and
 on, its legs dangling. A chance T had apparently broken its back, blyzing the legs, but leaving 1t still |ngth enough to fly a certain dis De. Trained hunter as he was, the watched the wounded bird, and fked the exact spot where it finally Sbped just at the edge of a cornheld mile away.
 IT think I'll go after 1t said the i Nonsense said Luther; its half
 away and you will have all you St without it.
 FBut the bird is wounded. I hate to @ 1t lie out there and suffer- &Oh, it's probably dead; or if 1t
 some skunk or weasel will kill 1t Night Come along.
 It was nearly sunset, and the youth
 tired after the long tramp of the It would be long trip over to ' cornfield for weary legs-and then haps to find the bird dead. Already kas super time at home, and he hunters appetite. So he allowed self to be overpersuaded, and the tramped homeward.
 But the grouse that had fallen over he cornfield was not dead. Nor, as Financed, was its wound of kind to huce speedy death. The injury did, lever, render the bird utterly hope
 Once it had dropped to the earth, boul not rise again. Nor could it Fe about on the ground, for It's legs 0 paralyzed completely. It lay on < bare earth, sheltered by the corn ks from the eyes of hawks, and Rre there was not much danger that Harauding beast would find 1t. But To was no food at hand. It was btful even whether the bird would Able to sip few drops of dew from .ornstalk to quench the thirst that wound must develop.
 ebuite obviously fate had marked grouse for lingering death of tor 4 s. It's wound, already painful, must bme more so with the lapse of D. Insects would come in phalanxes bester it. Hunger and thirst would
 their modicum of agony. The atest mercy it could hope for would he coming of some skunk or weas- hs the hunter had suggested, to put I lSt of misery. But no such messen- of speedy death chanced to come way"
 r. Williams describes the church. ice the following Sunday morning,
 the awakening of the boys mind Sa fear that the wounded grouse Int not have died all these days, he goes on.
 The youths soul was undergoing de- pment in that half hour. He was ! king one of those short cuts from t of view to point of view, He
 passing--little as he realized it. h the barbarlan-hunter stage to a e of broader sympathies.
 ll through the lesson he sat brood the same thoughts, and as he left church the idea of the wounded ken had taken full possession of, his d. Instead of going home, he sci for the field where he had shot the lse, He believed he might find the
 even yet. At least h would try. A good memory and a keen eye en- ! q him to go about the point of the
 from which the grouse had flush and over by the cornf1eld he noted exact point-marked by a peculiar ke post-where the wounded bird
 gone down. He went directly to 1t,
 had scarcely entered the cornfeld n his dog came to a point. There hd on the ground lay the bird tened at full length. It made nc It to escape as he came up, It was near death to fear him or anything eyes half closed, Its bill agape, as bebly gasped for breath.
 n an instant the youth was on hi; hs beside the bird. great lump ir throat, his eyes staring as if they ' Id start from their sockets The ming of it all came to him wltf
 force of a blow. Mechanically he Bhed away the insects that gather \ bout the wound in the birds back T stroked the soiled plumage tenderly found himself calculating the hours
 the grouse had lain there suffer. # It had happened Wednesday, anG
 was Sunday-twenty-f forty.
 t, seventy-two, about ninety hours;
 fully ninety. What a cruel stretch torture! The youth recalled an oc A lon when he had had toothacht
 two hours that had seemed inter able; and the meaning of that nine # hours of pain came home to hin
 more vividly. In an agony of re se he knelt there, thinking, think
 He closed his eyes. and when h he'd them few moments later tht lse had ceased to breathe.
 he youth rose suddenly and walk ; b the edge of the cornheld. He se Bd a spot in a fence corner, and be
 to dig a hole. The ground wa
 and he had nothing but his knif,
 a piece of stick to aid him; but h.
 evered the more stubbornly as hi brs became sore from digging pn the grave was deep enough, tn, ! h went after the body of tn
 SC and took it up very tenderly, a b much of suffering had given i
 edness. He laid the poor thinl
 fully in the ground, smoothing it
 y feather. As he was about to be
 pushing the dirt over 1t, he hesi d. After thinking a moment, h
 st his hand into his pocket an
 ght out knife. It was Q beautiful