"Good dog, Duke," Mr. Kincaid commended him. "Old cock bird," he told Bobby.
Bobby spread out the broad brown fan of a tail; he inserted his finger under the glossy ruffs; he stroked the smooth, brown, mottled back.
"This is more fun than squirrels," said he with conviction.
Mr. Kincaid glanced at him in surprise.
"But you can't hunt these fellows," said he, "It takes a shotgun to get 'pats.' You wouldn't have much fun at this game."
"I'd rather watch you—and Duke," replied Bobby, "than to shoot squirrels. Are there many of them?"
"Not up on the ridges," said Mr. Kincaid. "This fellow's rather a straggler. But there's plenty in the swamps and popples. Want to go after them?"
"Yes," said Bobby.
After that the two used often to follow the edges of the hardwood swamps, the creek bottoms, the hillsides of popples, and—later in the season—the sumac and berry-vine tangles of the old burnings, looking for that king of game-birds, the ruffed grouse.
Bobby became accustomed to the roar as the birds leaped into the air, so that he was able to follow with intelligent interest all the moves in the game, but never did his heart fail to leap in response. In later years, when he too owned a shotgun, this sudden shock of the nerves seemed to be the required stimulant to key him instantly to his best work. A sneaker—that is to say, a bird that flushed without the customary whirr—he was quite apt to miss.