. I had only that one
arrow to depend on, for game, and if I waited much longer then I might
lose it in the dusk. Not an easy shot had shown itself, either, during
all the time I had been traveling.

Water was liable to be down there somewhere, in those valleys, and I
looked to see which was the greenest or which had any willows. To the
greenest it seemed a long way. Then I had a clue. I saw a flock of
grouse. They sailed out from the timber and across and slanted down into
a gulch. More followed. They acted as if they were bound somewhere on
purpose, and I remembered that grouse usually drink before they go to
bed.

These were so far away, below me, that I couldn't make out whether they
were sage grouse, or the blue grouse, or the fool grouse. If they were
sage grouse, I might not get near enough to them to shoot sure with my
one arrow. If they were blue grouse, that would be bad, too, for blue
grouse are sharp. If they were fool grouse, I ought to get one. I marked
exactly where they sailed for, and down I went, keeping my eye on the
spot. Now I must use Scoutcraft for water and food. If I couldn't manage
a fire, I could chew meat raw.

Yes, I remembered that it was against the law to kill grouse, yet. I
thought about it a minute; and decided that the law did not intend that
a starving person should not kill just enough for meat when he had
nothing else. I was willing to tell the first ranger or game warden, and
pay a fine--but I must eat. And I hoped that what I was trying to do was
all right. Motives count, in law, don't they?

Down I went, as fast as I could go. The sun was just sinking out of
sight. It was the lonesome time of day for a fellow without fire or food
or shelter, in the places where nobody lived, and I wouldn't have
objected much if I'd been home at the supper table.

I reached the bottom of the hill. It ended at the edge of some aspens.
Their white trunks were ghostly in the twilight. Across through the
aspens I hurried, straight as I could go; and I came out into a grassy,
boggy place--a basin where water from the hills around was seeping!
Hurrah! It was a regular spring, and the water ran trickling away, down
through a gulch.

Grasses grew high: wild timothy and wild oats and gama grass, mingled
with flowers. Along the trickle were willows, too. With the aspens and
the willows and the seed grasses and the water this was a fine place for
grouse. I looked for sign, on the edge of the wetness,