The morning journal-courier., 1907-12-20

than l in these matters that I always accepted his judgment. If he said. To-day they will be in the swamps," I responded, TO the swamps let us go." But after a time l came to have opinions of my own, and then the era of discussion set in.
 To-day" begins Jonathan, judici- ally the wind is north, and the birds will be on the south slopes close to the swamp bottoms to keep warm"
 Now, Jonathan you know I don't a bit believe in going by the wind. The cartridges don't mind wind, their feathers shed it. What they care about is the sun, and to-day the sun is hot at least" with shiver, it would be if we had feathers on instead If car- vas. I believe we shall advocate the big woods, because I like them hest for a tramp. Jonathan, too well content at the prospect of .lay's hunt to mind contradiction, says gcni- ally, All right, I'll go wherever you say" which always reduces me U terms at once. Abovs all things, tlis- like to maze n~self\answ4raole fot the success or failure of the iay. [ prefer irresponsible criticism before lhand-and afterward. So say hasti- ly, "Oh, no, no! Of course y)1 know q great deal more .aan l do We il ,ge wherever you think pest.
 We try the bircias, and the pretty things whip our faces with their siend- CT twigs in their own inimitabla iash- ion, peculiarly trying Q my temper I can never go thro lgh bircheS long without growing captious
 Jonathan" I call, as 1 catch a glimpse of his hunting coas through an opening, T thought the birds were in the birches this morning. They don't seem really abundant"
 Jonathan, unrudled suggests that go along on the edge of the wood while he beats out tas middle with the dog. which magnanlmous offer sharnes me into silent if not cheersul acqIies- .ence, Suddenly--wa. T .--someth'ng bursts away in the crush ahead of us Mark" we both call, and "pil you set his line?" My criticai spirit $ still ed, and l am suddan'v fired with the instinct to follow follow. l. is indeed primitive instinct, this of the chase. No matter how tired one is, the in- pulse of pursuit is there. At the close of a long days hunt, after IS miles or so of hard tramping --equal to twice that of easy walking-Wl en ,,,,. faa+ ora I,ao,y,r aDJ ,,,v nna5 d,,1i I have never seen a partridge fly with out feeling ready, eager, to follow anywhere.
 After we move the first bird, it is follow my leader! And wild leader he is. Flushed in the birches, lle makes straight for the swamp The swamp it is, then, and down we go af- ter him, and in we go-ugh! how shivery the first plunge is-straight to the puddly heart of it. carefully keep ing our direction, going fast at first; then, when we have nearly covered the distance a partridge usually flies, going more cautiously, holding back the too eager dog, listening for the snap of a twig or the sound of wings, gripping our guns tighter at every blue jay or robin that Hicks across l your path. No bird yet; we must have passed him; perhaps we went too 1 far to the left. But no--whr-r! 1 Where is he2 There. Out of the top of Ia tall swamp maple off he goes, sail I ing over the swamp to the ridge be- yond. No wonder the dog was at sea, Well--we know his line, we are of again after him in spite of the swamp
 between, with it's mud and it's rotten tree trunks and its grape vines and it's catbriers.
 Up on the ridge at last, we hunt
 close, find him, get a shot probably
 miss, and away we go again Some
 hunters used to country where
 game is plenty will not follow a bird l if they miss him on the first rise. They prefer to keep on their predetermined
 course and find another, But for me there is little pleasure in that kind of sport. What I enjoy most is not shoot ing, but hunting The chase is the lthing-the chase after a particular bird once flushed the setting of my wits against his in the endeavor to follow up his fight We have now and then flushed the same bird nine or ten times before We got him-and we have not always got him then. For many and deep are the crafty ways of the old partridge, and we have not yet learned them IL That is why I like partridge hunting better than quail or woodcock, though in these you get far more and better shooting. Quail start in a bunch, scatter, fly and drop where you can flush them again, one at a time. woodcock fly in a zig gag, drop where they happen to, and sit still till you almost step on them. But the partridge thinks as he flies thinks to good advantage. He seems to know what we expect him to do, and then he does something else. How many times have we gone past him, when he sat quietly between us, and then heard him fly off stealthily down our back track! How often, in last desperate search for a vanished bird, nave jumped on every Ielleq cedar top in fleld-except the one he was under! How often have I broken open my gun to climb a stone wall--for we are cautious folk, Jonathan and T. and, as I stood in perilous balance seen a great bird burst out from un- der my very feet How often--but I am not going to be tempted into tell ing hunting stories. For some reas- on or other, hunting stories chiefly in- terest the narrator. I have watched sportsmen telling tales in the eveu- ings, and noted how every man but