"I'll make a sled and have you back to the house in a jiffy."
"You'll make a sled?" Gramps said in something like his old voice. "Just how do you aim to make it?"
"I don't know," Bud said grimly, "but I'll make one."
"I believe you would," Gramps conceded. "I believe you would do just that, but it ain't necessary. I'll walk back."
And with a sudden lurch, Gramps heaved himself to his feet. He teetered uncertainly, but before Bud could help, Gramps found his balance and stood steadily. His face was pale, but he was no longer sweating and his grin was warm.
"See? Sound as a yearling colt. Now you stop troubling your head about me and find those two pat'tidges you dropped."
Then Bud remembered the pair of grouse that had fallen to his two shots. He looked at his shotgun, which was still leaning against the little pine very near his shooting position when he scored his double. He reconstructed the approximate positions of the two grouse when he shot, and the angle at which each had pitched into the snow. He looked uncertainly at Gramps.
"Go ahead," the old man said. "You put 'em down and now you get 'em. There's two things you don't leave in the woods; one's wounded game and t'other's dead game. You get 'em."
Bud caught up his shotgun, cradled it in the crook of his arm, and walked to where he thought the first bird would be. He found it almost at once, pitched against a little cluster of blackberry canes with its wings still spread as though it were ready to fly again. For the second bird Bud searched five minutes. He put both in the game pocket of his jacket and returned to Gramps.
"I found them."