“Yes,” I said, “you see it is my quail hunting instinct. I had my first lesson in shooting quail in the pine woods of Alabama, and let me tell you, I laughed, it may be wrong, but it’s dead easy killing those big, beautiful hens. Honestly, except for their lightning flight I thought I was shooting at Tennessee guineas.”
Mr. Stone laughed: “You wait and see,” he said.
“Why, if you want to know what real shooting is,” I went on, “you just get up a covey of piny wood quail, where every mother’s chick of them is taught from his pipping moment to place a pine tree between him and a load of shot, and do it in the first twenty feet. You have got to shoot quick.”
We had walked away across the stubble to where they had gone down, scattered. Suddenly—
“There they are,” said my companion. As we came on the bitch frozen again.
“Now, you first,” said Mr. Stone, kindly, “it’s a single bird.”
Up went the bird with his thunder of wings. I don’t know how it happened—I can’t see how it happened to this day. I think I was thinking of Alabama quail or Tennessee “patterges,” as Old Wash calls them, but when I fired and the great game cock went on about his business, I got busy seeing what ailed my gun, and wondering why we always fall down about the time we think we are mounted on as many legs as a centipede. Mr. Stone was too polite to refer to my previous remarks, and I watched the big fellow sail away with more respect for the sport.
A little further on the Llewellyn again stood, and this time it was my companion’s first shot. And here is where I did a shameless thing—but I couldn’t help it, to save my life.
Up went the bird, and I saw the old hunter throw up his gun. I listened for the report, but on sailed the bird, fairly eating space—on—on—fifty—sixty—seventy yards.
My fingers itched, my arms jerked upward, my gun jumped to my shoulder. “Great heavens,” I thought, “the bird is gone! His gun won’t fire”—