“Throw chunks on the other side of them and let the waves wash them ashore,” was the reply. “I saw a flock of quails over here, and as soon as I get some of them, I will bring the dogs back.”
“You’re not much of a sportsman, Hop,” said Curtis. “There is no such thing as a flock of quails. Covey is the proper word.”
“Aw!” said Hopkins. “Well, I don’t care what you call them, so long as you will let me have the dogs long enough to shoot some of them. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
The duck hunters were obliged to be satisfied with this promise, and when Hopkins made it he fully intended to keep it; but in the ardor of the chase he forgot all about it. The pointers very soon found the covey, which Hopkins had marked down very accurately, and when it took wing at his approach, he brought down five members of it very handsomely. Punch and Dandy dropped to shot—that is, when the gun was fired, they laid down and waited for the hunter to reload—and when they were ordered to seek dead, they executed a manœuvre which some of our best artists, who love a dog and gun, have often reproduced on canvas.
The reason why dogs are taught to drop to shot is this: The members of the covey do not all fly away at the same time, but some generally remain behind, preferring to trust to concealment rather than to flight. If the dogs were permitted to rush in at once to secure the dead birds, they would flush these laggards, which would get off scot free; for of course the sportsman could not shoot at them while he held an empty gun in his hands.
“Seek dead,” commanded Hopkins, as soon as he had reloaded his gun; whereupon the dogs jumped up, and, after running about among the bushes for a few minutes, stopped and came to a point.
“Fetch!” said the hunter; and in obedience to the order each dog seized a bird. They were coming in with them, when Dandy stopped as if he had suddenly been deprived of all power of action, and came to another point. He was standing a live bird while he held a dead one in his mouth. Punch backed him splendidly—that is, he stopped and pointed also, although he did not see or smell the bird—and the two presented a picture that Hopkins, had he been handy with the brush or pencil, would have been glad to preserve. He stood and looked at it for at least five minutes, the dogs holding their point stanchly all the while, and then he flushed the bird and brought it down.
“Well done, boys,” said Hopkins, after he had reloaded his gun, and placed the two quails carefully away in the capacious pockets of his shooting-coat; “you have been educated by somebody who understands his business. Seek dead.”
Hopkins had kept his eyes on the surviving members of the covey, and marked them down (by that we mean that he had noted the exact spot on which they alighted); but he did not intend to pay any further attention to them just then. He knew that every minute he spent in hunting them up would be just so much time wasted. He had learned by experience that after a covey has once been flushed, it is almost impossible for the best dogs to find it again. A large number of quails have been seen to settle down in a clump of bushes not more than ten feet in circumference, and the dogs have run through their place of concealment in every direction without seeing or scenting a single bird. Every sportsman has noticed this, and some of the best of them affirm that the birds are endowed with the power of retaining their scent; but whether that is so or not—and nobody has ever been able to refute it—the fact that they are hard to find when once they have become scattered, remains the same.
“I will attend to you in half an hour,” soliloquized Hopkins, when all the dead birds had been brought in. “By that time you will begin to run around, and the dogs will be able to scent you. Hie on, boys! Hunt up another flock.”