Of all the wild birds that still haunt our remaining solitudes, the
ruffed grouse--the pa'tridge of our younger days--is perhaps the
wildest, the most alert, the most suggestive of the primeval wilderness
that we have lost. You enter the woods from the hillside pasture,
lounging a moment on the old gray fence to note the play of light and
shadow on the birch bolls. Your eye lingers restfully on the wonderful
mixture of soft colors that no brush has ever yet imitated, the rich old
gold of autumn tapestries, the glimmering gray-green of the mouldering
stump that the fungi have painted. What a giant that tree must have
been, generations ago, in its days of strength; how puny the birches
that now grow out of its roots! You remember the great canoe birches by
the wilderness river, whiter than the little tent that nestled beneath
them, their wide bark banners waving in the wind, soft as the flutter of
owls' wings that swept among them, shadow-like, in the twilight. A vague
regret steals over you that our own wilderness is gone, and with it most
of the shy folk that loved its solitudes.
Suddenly there is a rustle in the leaves. Something stirs by the old
stump. A moment ago you thought it was only a brown root; now it runs,
hides, draws itself erect--Kwit, kwit, kwit! and with a whirring rush of
wings and a whirling eddy of dead leaves a grouse bursts up, and
darts away like a blunt arrow, flint-tipped, gray-feathered, among the
startled birch stems. As you follow softly to rout him out again, and to
thrill and be startled by his unexpected rush, something of the
Indian has come unbidden into your cautious tread. All regret for the
wilderness is vanished; you are simply glad that so much wildness still
remains to speak eloquently of the good old days.
It is this element of unconquerable wildness in the grouse, coupled with
a host of early, half-fearful impressions, that always sets my heart to
beating, as to an old tune, whenever a partridge bursts away at my feet.
I remember well a little child that used to steal away into the still
woods, which drew him by an irresistible attraction while as yet their
dim arches and quiet paths were full of mysteries and haunting terrors.
Step by step the child would advance into the shadows, cautious as a
wood mouse, timid as a rabbit. Suddenly a swift rustle and a thunderous
rush of something from the ground that first set the child's heart to
beating wildly, and then reached his heels in a fearful impulse which
sent him rushing out of the woods, tumbling headlong over the old gray
wall, and scampering halfway across the pasture before he dared halt
from the terror behind. And then, at last, another impulse which always
sent the child stealing back into the woods again, shy, alert, tense as
a watching fox, to find out what the fearful thing was that could make
such a commotion in the quiet woods.
And when he found out at last--ah, that was a discovery beside which
the panther's kittens are as nothing as I think of them. One day in the
woods, near the spot where the awful thunder used to burst away, the
child heard a cluck and a kwitkwit, and saw a beautiful bird dodging,
gliding, halting, hiding in the underbrush, watching the child's every
motion. And when he ran forward to put his cap over the bird, it burst
away, and then--whirr! whirr! whirr! a whole covey of grouse roared up
all about him. The terror of it weakened his legs so that he fell down
in the eddying leaves and covered his ears. But this time he knew what
it was at last, and in a moment he was up and running, not away, but
fast as his little legs could carry him after the last bird that he saw
hurtling away among the trees, with a birch branch that he had touched
with his wings nodding good-by behind him.
There is another association with this same bird that always gives an
added thrill to the rush of his wings through the startled woods. It was
in the old school by the cross-roads, one sleepy September afternoon. A
class in spelling, big boys and little girls, toed a crack in front of
the waster's desk. The rest of the school droned away on appointed tasks
in the drowsy interlude. The fat boy slept openly on his arms; even the
mischief-maker was quiet, thinking dreamily of summer days that were
gone. Suddenly there was a terrific crash, a clattering tinkle of broken
glass, a howl from a boy near the window. Twenty knees banged the desks
beneath as twenty boys jumped. Then, before any of us had found his
wits, Jimmy Jenkins, a red-headed boy whom no calamity could throw off
his balance and from whom no opportunity ever got away free, had jumped
over two forms and was down on the floor in the girls' aisle, gripping
something between his knees--
"I've got him," he announced, with the air of a general.
"Got what?" thundered the master.
"Got a pa'tridge; he's an old buster," said Jimmy. And he straightened
up, holding by the legs a fine cock partridge whose stiffening wings
still beat his sides spasmodically. He had been scared-up in the
neighboring woods, frightened by some hunter out of his native coverts.
When he reached the unknown open places he was more frightened still
and, as a frightened grouse always flies straight, he had driven like a
bolt through the schoolhouse window, killing himself by the impact.
Rule-of-three and cube root and the unmapped wilderness of partial
payments have left but scant impression on one of those pupils, at
least; but a bird that could wake up a drowsy schoolroom and bring out
a living lesson, full of life and interest and the subtile call of the
woods, from a drowsy teacher who studied law by night, but never his
boys by day,--that was a bird to be respected. I have studied him with
keener interest ever since.
Yet however much you study the grouse, you learn little except how wild
he is. Occasionally, when you are still in the woods and a grouse walks
up to your hiding place, you get a fair glimpse and an idea or two; but
he soon discovers you, and draws himself up straight as a string and
watches you for five minutes without stirring or even winking. Then,
outdone at his own game, he glides away. A rustle of little feet on
leaves, a faint kwit-kwit with a question in it, and he is gone. Nor
will he come back, like the fox, to watch from the other side and find
out what you are.
Civilization, in its first advances, is good to the grouse, providing
him with an abundance of food and driving away his enemies. Grouse are
always more numerous about settlements than in the wilderness. Unlike
other birds, however, he grows wilder and wilder by nearness to men's
dwellings. I suppose that is because the presence of man is so often
accompanied by the rush of a dog and the report of a gun, and perhaps by
the rip and sting of shot in his feathers as he darts away. Once, in the
wilderness, when very hungry, I caught two partridges by slipping over
their heads a string noose at the end of a pole. Here one might as well
try to catch a bat in the twilight as to hope to snare one of our upland
partridges by any such invention, or even to get near enough to meditate
the attempt.
But there was one grouse--and he the very wildest of all that I have
ever met in the woods--who showed me unwittingly many bits of his life,
and with whom I grew to be very well acquainted after a few seasons'
watching. All the hunters of the village knew him well; and a half-dozen
boys, who owned guns and were eager to join the hunters' ranks, had a
shooting acquaintance with him. He was known far and wide as "the ol'
beech pa'tridge." That he was old no one could deny who knew his ways
and his devices; and he was frequently scared-up in a beech wood by a
brook, a couple of miles out of the village.
Spite of much learned discussion as to different varieties of grouse,
due to marked variations in coloring, I think personally that we have
but one variety, and that differences in color are due largely to the
different surroundings in which they live. Of all birds the grouse is
most invisible when quiet, his coloring blends so perfectly with the
roots and leaves and tree stems among which he hides. This wonderful
invisibility is increased by the fact that he changes color easily. He
is darker in summer, lighter in winter, like the rabbit. When he lives
in dark woods he becomes a glossy red-brown; and when his haunt is among
the birches he is often a decided gray.
This was certainly true of the old beech partridge. When he spread
his tail wide and darted away among the beeches, his color blended so
perfectly with the gray tree trunks that only a keen eye could separate
him. And he knew every art of the dodger perfectly. When he rose there
was scarcely a second of time before he had put a big tree between you
and him, so as to cover his line of flight. I don't know how many times
he had been shot at on the wing. Every hunter I knew had tried it many
times; and every boy who roamed the woods in autumn had sought to pot
him on the ground. But he never lost a feather; and he would never
stand to a dog long enough for the most cunning of our craft to take his
position.
When a brood of young partridges hear a dog running in the woods, they
generally flit to the lower branches of a tree and kwit-kwit at him
curiously. They have not yet learned the difference between him and the
fox, who is the ancient enemy of their kind, and whom their ancestors of
the wilderness escaped and tantalized in the same way. But when it is an
old bird that your setter is trailing, his actions are a curious mixture
of cunning and fascination. As old Don draws to a point, the grouse
pulls himself up rigidly by a stump and watches the dog. So both stand
like statues; the dog held by the strange instinct which makes him
point, lost to sight, sound and all things else save the smell in his
nose, the grouse tense as a fiddlestring, every sense alert, watching
the enemy whom he thinks to be fooled by his good hiding. For a few
moments they are motionless; then the grouse skulks and glides to a
better cover. As the strong scent fades from Don's nose, he breaks
his point and follows. The grouse hears him and again hides by drawing
himself up against a stump, where he is invisible; again Don stiffens
into his point, one foot lifted, nose and tail in a straight line, as if
he were frozen and could not move.
So it goes on, now gliding through the coverts, now still as a stone,
till the grouse discovers that so long as he is still the dog seems
paralyzed, unable to move or feel. Then he draws himself up, braced
against a root or a tree boll; and there they stand, within twenty feet
of each other, never stirring, never winking, till the dog falls from
exhaustion at the strain, or breaks it by leaping forward, or till the
hunter's step on the leaves fills the grouse with a new terror that
sends him rushing away through the October woods to deeper solitudes.
Once, at noon, I saw Old Ben, a famous dog, draw to a perfect point.
Just ahead, in a tangle of brown brakes, I could see the head and neck
of a grouse watching the dog keenly. Old Ben's master, to test the
splendid training of his dog, proposed lunch on the spot. We withdrew a
little space and ate deliberately, watching the bird and the dog with an
interest that grew keener and keener as the meal progressed, while Old
Ben stood like a rock, and the grouse's eye shone steadily out of the
tangle of brakes. Nor did either move so much as an eyelid while we ate,
and Ben's master smoked his pipe with quiet confidence. At last, after
a full hour, he whacked his pipe on his boot heel and rose to reach for
his gun. That meant death for the grouse; but I owed him too much of
keen enjoyment to see him cut down in swift flight. In the moment that
the master's back was turned I hurled a knot at the tangle of brakes.
The grouse burst away, and Old Ben, shaken out of his trance by the
whirr of wings, dropped obediently to the charge and turned his head to
say reproachfully with his eyes: "What in the world is the matter with
you back there--didn't I hold him long enough?"
The noble old fellow was trembling like a leaf after the long strain
when I went up to him to pat his head and praise his steadiness, and
share with him the better half of my lunch. But to this day Ben's master
does not know what started the grouse so suddenly; and as he tells you
about the incident will still say regretfully: "I ought to a-started
jest a minute sooner, 'fore he got tired. Then I'd a had 'im."
The old beech partridge, however, was a bird of a different mind. No dog
ever stood him for more than a second; he had learned too well what the
thing meant. The moment he heard the patter of a dog's feet on leaves
he would run rapidly, and skulk and hide and run again, keeping dog and
hunter on the move till he found the cover he wanted,--thick trees, or
a tangle of wild grapevines,--when he would burst out on, the farther
side. And no eye, however keen, could catch more than a glimpse of a
gray tail before he was gone. Other grouse make short straight flights,
and can be followed and found again; but he always drove away on strong
wings for an incredible distance, and swerved far to right or left; so
that it was a waste of time to follow him up. Before you found him he
had rested his wings and was ready for another flight; and when you did
find him he would shoot away like an arrow out of the top of a pine tree
and give you never a glimpse of himself.
He lived most of the time on a ridge behind the 'Fales place,' an
abandoned farm on the east of the old post road. This was his middle
range, a place of dense coverts, bullbrier thickets and sunny open spots
among the ledges, where you might, with good-luck, find him on special
days at any season. But he had all the migratory instincts of a
Newfoundland caribou. In winter he moved south, with twenty other
grouse, to the foot of the ridge, which dropped away into a succession
of knolls and ravines and sunny, well-protected little valleys, where
food was plenty. Here, fifty years ago, was the farm pasture; but now it
had grown up everywhere with thickets and berry patches, and wild apple
trees of the birds' planting. All the birds loved it in their season;
quail nested on its edges; and you could kick a brown rabbit out of
almost any of its decaying brush piles or hollow moss-grown logs.
In the spring he crossed the ridge northward again, moving into the
still dark woods, where he had two or three wives with as many broods of
young partridges; all of whom, by the way, he regarded with astonishing
indifference.
Across the whole range--stealing silently out of the big woods, brawling
along the foot of the ridge and singing through the old pasture--ran
a brook that the old beech partridge seemed to love. A hundred times
I started him from its banks. You had only to follow it any November
morning before eight o'clock, and you would be sure to find him. But why
he haunted it at this particular time and season I never found out.
I used to wonder sometimes why I never saw him drink. Other birds had
their regular drinking places and bathing pools there, and I frequently
watched them from my hiding; but though I saw him many times, after I
learned his haunts, he never touched the water.
One early summer morning a possible explanation suggested itself. I was
sitting quietly by the brook, on the edge of the big woods, waiting for
a pool to grow quiet, out of which I had just taken a trout and in which
I suspected there was a larger one hiding. As I waited a mother-grouse
and her brood--one of the old beech partridge's numerous families for
whom he provided nothing--came gliding along the edge of the woods. They
had come to drink, evidently, but not from the brook. A sweeter draught
than that was waiting for their coming. The dew was still clinging to
the grass blades; here and there a drop hung from a leaf point, flashing
like a diamond in the early light. And the little partridges, cheeping,
gliding, whistling among the drooping stems, would raise their little
bills for each shining dewdrop that attracted them, and drink it down
and run with glad little pipings and gurglings to the next drop that
flashed an invitation from its bending grass blade. The old mother
walked sedately in the midst of them, now fussing over a laggard, now
clucking them all together in an eager, chirping, jumping little crowd,
each one struggling to be first in at the death of a fat slug she had
discovered on the underside of a leaf; and anon reaching herself for a
dewdrop that hung too high for their drinking. So they passed by within
a few yards, a shy, wild, happy little family, and disappeared into the
shadow of the big woods.
Perhaps that is why I never saw the old beech partridge drink from the
brook. Nature has a fresher draught, of her own distilling, that is more
to his tasting.
Earlier in the season I found another of his families near the same
spot. I was stealing along a wood road when I ran plump upon them,
scratching away at an ant hill in a sunny open spot. There was a wild
flurry, as if a whirlwind had struck the ant hill; but it was only the
wind of the mother bird's wings, whirling up the dust to blind my eyes
and to hide the scampering retreat of her downy brood. Again her wings
beat the ground, sending up a flurry of dead leaves, in the midst of
which the little partridges jumped and scurried away, so much like the
leaves that no eye could separate them. Then the leaves settled slowly
and the brood was gone, as if the ground had swallowed them up; while
Mother Grouse went fluttering along just out of my reach, trailing a
wing as if broken, falling prone on the ground, clucking and kwitting
and whirling the leaves to draw my attention and bring me away from
where the little ones were hiding.
I knelt down just within the edge of woods, whither I had seen the last
laggard of the brood vanish like a brown streak, and began to look for
them carefully. After a time I found one. He was crouched flat on a
dead oak leaf, just under my nose, his color hiding him wonderfully.
Something glistened in a tangle of dark roots. It was an eye, and
presently I could make out a little head there. That was all I could
find of the family, though a dozen more were close beside me, under the
leaves mostly. As I backed away I put my hand on another before seeing
him, and barely saved myself from hurting the little sly-boots, who
never stirred a muscle, not even when I took away the leaf that covered
him and put it back again softly.
Across the pathway was a thick scrub oak, under which I sat down to
watch. Ten long minutes passed, with nothing stirring, before Mother
Grouse came stealing back. She clucked once--"Careful!" it seemed to
say; and not a leaf stirred. She clucked again--did the ground open?
There they were, a dozen or more of them, springing up from nowhere and
scurrying with a thousand cheepings to tell her all about it. So she
gathered them all close about her, and they vanished into the friendly
shadows.
It was curious how jealously the old beech partridge watched over the
solitudes where these interesting little families roamed. Though he
seemed to care nothing about them, and was never seen near one of his
families, he suffered no other cock partridge to come into his woods,
or even to drum within hearing. In the winter he shared the southern
pasture peaceably with twenty other grouse; and on certain days you
might, by much creeping, surprise a whole company of them on a sunny
southern slope, strutting and gliding, in and out and round about, with
spread tails and drooping wings, going through all the movements of a
grouse minuet. Once, in Indian summer, I crept up to twelve or fifteen
of the splendid birds, who were going through their curious performance
in a little opening among the berry bushes; and in the midst of
them-more vain, more resplendent, strutting more proudly and clucking
more arrogantly than any other--was the old beech partridge.
But when the spring came, and the long rolling drum-calls began to throb
through the budding woods, he retired to his middle range on the ridge,
and marched from one end to the other, driving every other cock grouse
out of hearing, and drubbing him soundly if he dared resist. Then, after
a triumph, you would hear his loud drum-call rolling through the May
splendor, calling as many wives as possible to share his rich living.
He had two drumming logs on this range, as I soon discovered; and once,
while he was drumming on one log, I hid near the other and imitated
his call fairly well by beating my hands on a blown bladder that I
had buttoned under my jacket. The roll of a grouse drum is a curiously
muffled sound; it is often hard to determine the spot or even the
direction whence it comes; and it always sounds much farther away than
it really is. This may have deceived the old beech partridge at first
into thinking that he heard some other bird far away, on a ridge across
the valley where he had no concern; for presently he drummed again on
his own log. I answered it promptly, rolling back a defiance, and also
telling any hen grouse on the range that here was another candidate
willing to strut and spread his tail and lift the resplendent ruff about
his neck to win his way into her good graces, if she would but come to
his drumming log and see him.
Some suspicion that a rival had come to his range must have entered
the old beech partridge's head, for there was a long silence in which
I could fancy him standing up straight and stiff on his drumming log,
listening intently to locate the daring intruder, and holding down his
bubbling wrath with difficulty.
Without waiting for him to drum again, I beat out a challenge. The roll
had barely ceased when he came darting up the ridge, glancing like a
bolt among the thick branches, and plunged down by his own log, where
he drew himself up with marvelous suddenness to listen and watch for the
intruder.
He seemed relieved that the log was not occupied, but he was still
full of wrath and suspicion. He glided and dodged all about the place,
looking and listening; then he sprang to his log and, without waiting to
strut and spread his gorgeous feathers as usual, he rolled out the long
call, drawing himself up straight the instant it was done, turning
his head from side to side to catch the first beat of his rival's
answer--"Come out, if you dare; drum, if you dare. Oh, you coward!"
And he hopped, five or six high, excited hops, like a rooster before
a storm, to the other end of the log, and again his quick throbbing
drumcall rolled through the woods.
Though I was near enough to see him clearly without, my field glasses,
I could not even then, nor at any other time when I have watched grouse
drumming, determine just how the call is given. After a little while
the excitement of a suspected rival's presence wore away, and he grew
exultant, thinking that he had driven the rascal out of his woods. He
strutted back and forth on the log, trailing his wings, spreading wide
his beautiful tail, lifting his crest and his resplendent ruff. Suddenly
he would draw himself up; there would be a flash of his wings up and
down that no eye could follow, and I would hear a single throb of his
drum. Another flash and another throb; then faster and faster, till
he seemed to have two or three pairs of wings, whirring and running
together like the spokes of a swift-moving wheel, and the drumbeats
rolled together into a long call and died away in the woods.
Generally he stood up on his toes, as a rooster does when he flaps his
wings before crowing; rarely he crouched down close to the log; but I
doubt if he beat the wood with his wings, as is often claimed. Yet the
two logs were different; one was dry and hard, the other mouldy and
moss-grown; and the drumcalls were as different as the two logs. After a
time I could tell by the sound which log he was using at the first beat
of his wings; but that, I think, was a matter of resonance, a kind of
sounding-board effect, and not because the two sounded differently as
he beat them. The call is undoubtedly made either by striking the wings
together over his back or, as I am inclined to believe, by striking them
on the down beat against his own sides.
Once I heard a wounded bird give three or four beats of his drum-call,
and when I went into the grapevine thicket, where he had fallen, I found
him lying flat on his back, beating his sides with his wings.
Whenever he drums he first struts, because he knows not how many pairs
of bright eyes are watching him shyly out of the coverts. Once, when I
had watched him strut and drum a few times, the leaves rustled, and two
hen grouse emerged from opposite sides into the little opening where his
log was. Then he strutted with greater vanity than before, while the two
hen grouse went gliding about the place, searching for seeds apparently,
but in reality watching his every movement out of their eye corners, and
admiring him to his heart's content.
In winter I used to follow his trail through the snow to find what he
had been doing, and what he had found to eat in nature's scarce time.
His worst enemies, the man and his dog, were no longer to be feared,
being restrained by law, and he roamed the woods with greater freedom
than ever. He seemed to know that he was safe at this time, and more
than once I trailed him up to his hiding and saw him whirr away through
the open woods, sending down a shower of snow behind him, as if in that
curious way to hide his line of flight from my eyes.
There were other enemies, however, whom no law restrained, save the
universal wood-laws of fear and hunger. Often I found the trail of a fox
crossing his in the snow; and once I followed a double trail, fox over
grouse, for nearly half a mile. The fox had struck the trail late the
previous afternoon, and followed it to a bullbrier thicket, in the midst
of which was a great cedar in which the old beech partridge roosted.
The fox went twice around the tree, halting and looking up, then went
straight away to the swamp, as if he knew it was of no use to watch
longer.
Rarely, when the snow was deep, I found the place where he, or some
other grouse, went to sleep on the ground. He would plunge down from
a tree into the soft snow, driving into it headfirst for three or four
feet, then turn around and settle down in his white warm chamber for the
night. I would find the small hole where he plunged in at evening, and
near it the great hole where he burst out when the light waked him.
Taking my direction from his wing prints in the snow, I would follow to
find where he lit, and then trace him on his morning wanderings.
One would think that this might be a dangerous proceeding, sleeping
on the ground with no protection but the snow, and a score of hungry
enemies prowling about the woods; but the grouse knows well that when
the storms are out his enemies stay close at home, not being able to
see or smell, and therefore afraid each one of his own enemies. There is
always a truce in the woods during a snowstorm; and that is the reason
why a grouse goes to sleep in the snow only while the flakes are still
falling. When the storm is over and the snow has settled a bit, the fox
will be abroad again; and then the grouse sleeps in the evergreens.
Once, however, the old beech partridge miscalculated. The storm ceased
early in the evening, and hunger drove the fox out on a night when,
ordinarily, he would have stayed under cover. Sometime about daybreak,
before yet the light had penetrated to where the old beech partridge was
sleeping, the fox found a hole in the snow, which told him that just in
front of his hungry nose a grouse was hidden, all unconscious of danger.
I found the spot, trailing the fox, a few hours later. How cautious he
was! The sly trail was eloquent with hunger and anticipation. A few feet
away from the promising hole he had stopped, looking keenly over the
snow to find some suspicious roundness on the smooth surface. Ah! there
it was, just by the edge of a juniper thicket. He crouched down, stole
forward, pushing a deep trail with his body, settled himself firmly and
sprang. And there, just beside the hole his paws had made in the snow,
was another hole where the grouse had burst out, scattering snow all
over his enemy, who had miscalculated by a foot, and thundered away to
the safety and shelter of the pines.
There was another enemy, who ought to have known better, following the
old beech partridge all one early spring when snow was deep and food
scarce. One day, in crossing the partridge's southern range, I met
a small boy,--a keen little fellow, with the instincts of a fox for
hunting. He had always something interesting afoot,--minks, or muskrats,
or a skunk, or a big owl,--so I hailed him with joy.
"Hello, Johnnie! what you after to-day--bears?"
But he only shook his head--a bit sheepishly, I thought--and talked of
all things except the one that he was thinking about; and presently he
vanished down the old road. One of his jacket pockets bulged more than
the other, and I knew there was a trap in it.
Late that afternoon I crossed his trail and, having nothing more
interesting to do, followed it. It led straight to the bullbrier thicket
where the old beech partridge roosted. I had searched for it many
times in vain before the fox led me to it; but Johnnie, in some of his
prowlings, had found tracks and a feather or two under a cedar branch,
and knew just what it meant. His trap was there, in the very spot where,
the night before, the old beech partridge had stood when he jumped for
the lowest limb. Corn was scattered liberally about, and a bluejay that
had followed Johnnie was already fast in the trap, caught at the base of
his bill just under the eyes. He had sprung the trap in pecking at some
corn that was fastened cunningly to the pan by fine wire.
When I took the jay carefully from the trap he played possum, lying limp
in my hand till my grip relaxed, when he flew to a branch over my
head, squalling and upbraiding me for having anything to do with such
abominable inventions.
I hung the trap to a low limb of the cedar, with a note in its
jaws telling Johnnie to come and see me next day. He came at dusk,
shamefaced, and I read him a lecture on fair play and the difference
between a thieving mink and an honest partridge. But he chuckled over
the bluejay, and I doubted the withholding power of a mere lecture; so,
to even matters, I hinted of an otter slide I had discovered, and of
a Saturday afternoon tramp together. Twenty times, he told me, he had
tried to snare the old beech partridge. When he saw the otter slide he
forswore traps and snares for birds; and I left the place, soon after,
with good hopes for the grouse, knowing that I had spiked the guns of
his most dangerous enemy.
Years later I crossed the old pasture and went straight to the bullbrier
tangle. There were tracks of a grouse in the snow,--blunt tracks that
rested lightly on the soft whiteness, showing that Nature remembered his
necessity and had caused his new snowshoes to grow famously. I hurried
to the brook, a hundred memories thronging over me of happy days and
rare sights when the wood folk revealed their little secrets. In the
midst of them--kwit! kwit! and with a thunder of wings a grouse whirred
away, wild and gray as the rare bird that lived there years before. And
when I questioned a hunter, he said: "That ol' beech pa'tridge? Oh, yes,
he's there. He'll stay there, too, till he dies of old age; 'cause you
see, Mister, there ain't nobody in these parts spry enough to ketch
'im."