Little by little, as he followed Mr. Kincaid, he learned the habits of his game: where it was to be found according to time of day and season of year. Strangely enough this he never analyzed. He did not consciously say to himself; "It is early in the day, and cold for the time of year, therefore we'll find them in the brush points just off the swamps, because they will be working out to the hillsides for the sun after roosting in the swamps." His processes of judgment were more instinctive. By dint of repeated experience of finding birds in certain cover, that kind of cover meant birds to him. "A good place for 'pats,'" said he to himself, and confidently expected to find them. That is the way good hunters are made.
All day long thus they would tramp, forcing their way through the blackthorn thickets; clambering over and under the dead-falls and débris of the slashings; climbing the side hills with the straight, silvery shafts of the poplars; wandering down the narrow aisles of the old logging roads; plodding doggedly across the unproductive fields that lay between patches of cover; always lured on in the hope of more game farther on, picking up a bird here, a bird there, each an adventure in itself. And occasionally, once in a great while, they ran against a glorious piece of luck, when the grouse rose in twos and threes, this way, that, and the other, until the air seemed full of them. Mr. Kincaid, very intent, shot and loaded as fast as he was able. Sometimes things went right, and the bag was richer by two or three birds. Again they went wrong. The first grouse to rise might be the farthest away. Mr. Kincaid would snap-shoot at it, only to be overwhelmed, after his gun was empty, by a half dozen flushing under his very feet. Or a miss at an easy first would spell humiliation all along the line. Then Bobby and Duke would be much cast down.
"Thing to do," said Mr. Kincaid, "is to shoot one bird at a time. If you get to thinking of the second before you've killed the first, you won't get either. It's a hard thing to learn. I haven't got it down pat yet."
The short autumn days went fast. Before they knew it the pale sun had touched the horizon and the world was turning cold and gray. Then came the long laden tramp back to old Bucephalus, or perhaps to town, if they had started out afoot. They were always very tired; but, as to Bobby, at least, very happy.
Generally speaking they wandered through the country at will. Shooting was not then as popular as it is now, nor the farms as close together. Sometimes, however, they came across signs warning against trespass or hunting. Then, if the cover seemed especially desirable, Mr. Kincaid used sometimes to try to obtain permission of the owner of the land. Once or twice, having overlooked the sign, they were ordered off. The farmers were good-natured, even though firm.
But some four miles to the eastward lay a deep long swamp following the windings between hills where Mr. Kincaid and Bobby had a very disagreeable experience. It was late in the afternoon, so Bobby had become tired. Duke made game on the outskirts of a dense thicket, hesitated, then led the way cautiously into the tangle.
"It's pretty thick," Mr. Kincaid advised Bobby; "you'd better sit on the stump there until I come out."
Bobby did so. A moment or so after Mr. Kincaid had disappeared, the little boy became aware of a man approaching across the stump-dotted field. He was a short, thickset man, with a broad face almost entirely covered with a beard, a thick nose, and little, inflamed snapping eyes. He was clad in faded and dingy overalls, and carried a pitchfork.
"Who's that shooting in here?" he shouted at Bobby as soon as he was within hearing. "What do you mean by hunting here? You must have passed right by the sign."