ense. The little
boy found space for a fleeting resentment against a nuthatch on a
tree-trunk near at hand for the calm, indifferent and noisy manner in
which he went about his everyday business.

Suddenly a mighty roar shattered the stillness. Beyond Duke something
swift and noisy and brown and explosive seemed to fill the air. So
startling was the irruption that Bobby was powerless to gather his
scattered senses sufficiently to see clearly what was happening. Mr.
Kincaid's gun bellowed; a cloud of white powder smoke hung in the
mottled sunshine. And down through the trees a swift, brown,
bullet-like flight crumpled and fell, whirling and twisting in a long
slanting line until it hit the earth with a thump! Bobby heard Mr.
Kincaid berating Duke.

"Down, you villain! Don't you try to break shot on me!"

And Duke, his hindquarters trembling with eagerness, his head turned
beseechingly toward the man, crouched awaiting the signal.

Quite deliberately Mr. Kincaid reloaded.

"Fetch dead!" he then commanded.

Duke sprang away in long elastic leaps. After a moment of casting back
and forth, he returned. His head was held high, for in his mouth he
carried the limp brown bird. Straight to Mr. Kincaid he marched. The man
stooped and laid hands on the game. At once the dog released it, not a
feather ruffled by his delicate mouthing.

"Good dog, Duke," Mr. Kincaid commended him. "Old cock bird," he told
Bobby.

Bobby spread out the broad brown fan of a tail; he inserted his finger
under the glossy ruffs; he stroked the smooth, brown, mottled back.

"This is more fun than squirrels," said he with conviction.

Mr. Kincaid glanced at him in surprise.

"But you can't hunt these fellows," said he, "It takes a shotgun to get
'pats.' You wouldn't have much fun at this game."

"I'd rather watch you--and Duke," replied Bobby, "than to shoot
squirrels. Are there many of them?"

"Not up on the ridges," said Mr. Kincaid. "This fellow's rather a
straggler. But there's plenty in the swamps and popples. Want to go
after them?"

"Yes," said Bobby.

After that the two used often to follow the edges of the hardwood
swamps, the creek bottoms, the hillsides of popples, and--later in the
season--the sumac and berry-vine tangles of the old burnings, looking
for that king of game-birds, the ruffed grouse.

Bobby became accustomed to the roar as the birds leaped into the air, so
that he was able to follow with intelligent interest al