Coming up the trail toward daylight, for it has grown dark in the cañon, I meet a flock of quail, beautiful creatures, that survey me fearlessly as I pass. I hope no Christmas pot hunter will find them and carry them home, a trophy of his day’s sport. How any human being who has ever seen a flock of quail in all their living, alert beauty, can take pleasure in picking the poor little bones of the slaughtered birds is another of the mysterious things of life. I came, some time ago, with a party of trampers, to an open space amid the chaparral, on the crest of a chain of hills. Suddenly the leader of our group motioned silence and stood, with parted lips and smiling, delighted eyes, gazing at a flock of quail quietly making their way through the grass, with glossy feathers stirring in the breeze and crested heads held fearlessly high.
“Did you ever see anything more beautiful?” whispered their discoverer; but the Nimrod of the party wrung his weaponless hands and wailed:
“What a shot! Oh, what a shot!”
Verily, that first man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.