XII
THE TRESPASSERS
One day as Bobby and Mr. Kincaid were walking along looking forsquirrels in the high open woods, Duke, who was always required to trailat heel for fear of alarming the game, became very uneasy. He droppedback a few steps, and attempted to escape from control on either side;he tried to get ahead--with always a deprecating side-glance at hismasters; he begged in his best dog fashion.
"He acts like birds," said Mr. Kincaid. "Hie on, Duke!"
Immediately Duke sprang away, the impulse of his suddenly releasedenergy projecting him ten feet at a bound. But at once he slowed down.Step by step he drew ahead, his beautiful feathered tail sweeping slowlyfrom side to side, his delicate nostrils expanding and contracting, hisfine intelligent eye roving here and there. He stopped. His head droppedto the level of his back and stretched straight out ahead. His tailstiffened. Gently he raised one hind leg just off the ground. His eyeglazed with an inner concentration, and the trace of slaver moistenedthe edges of his black and shining lips.
Mr. Kincaid cocked his gun and stepped forward.
"He's just beyond that dead log, Bobby," he said quietly.
Bobby watched with all his eyes. One, two, three steps Mr. Kincaidadvanced. Now he was abreast of Duke. The setter merely stiffened atrifle more. Bobby's heart was beating rapidly. The whole sunlit autumnworld of woodland seemed waiting in a breathless suspense. The littleboy found space for a fleeting resentment against a nuthatch on atree-trunk near at hand for the calm, indifferent and noisy manner inwhich he went about his everyday business.
Suddenly a mighty roar shattered the stillness. Beyond Duke somethingswift and noisy and brown and explosive seemed to fill the air. Sostartling was the irruption that Bobby was powerless to gather hisscattered senses sufficiently to see clearly what was happening. Mr.Kincaid's gun bellowed; a cloud of white powder smoke hung in themottled sunshine. And down through the trees a swift, brown,bullet-like flight crumpled and fell, whirling and twisting in a longslanting line until it hit the earth with a thump! Bobby heard Mr.Kincaid berating Duke.
"Down, you villain! Don't you try to break shot on me!"
And Duke, his hindquarters trembling with eagerness, his head turnedbeseechingly toward the man, crouched awaiting the signal.
Quite deliberately Mr. Kincaid reloaded.
"Fetch dead!" he then commanded.
Duke sprang away in long elastic leaps. After a moment of casting backand forth, he returned. His head was held high, for in his mouth hecarried the limp brown bird. Straight to Mr. Kincaid he marched. The manstooped and laid hands on the game. At once the dog released it, not afeather ruffled by his delicate mouthing.
"Good dog, Duke," Mr. Kincaid commended him. "Old cock bird," he toldBobby.
Bobby spread out the broad brown fan of a tail; he inserted his fingerunder 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 shootsquirrels. Are there many of them?"
"Not up on the ridges," said Mr. Kincaid. "This fellow's rather astraggler. But there's plenty in the swamps and popples. Want to goafter them?"
"Yes," said Bobby.
After that the two used often to follow the edges of the hardwoodswamps, the creek bottoms, the hillsides of popples, and--later in theseason--the sumac and berry-vine tangles of the old burnings, lookingfor that king of game-birds, the ruffed grouse.
Bobby became accustomed to the roar as the birds leaped into the air, sothat he was able to follow with intelligent interest all the moves inthe game, but never did his heart fail to leap in response. In lateryears, when he too owned a shotgun, this sudden shock of the nervesseemed to be the required stimulant to key him instantly to his bestwork. A sneaker--that is to say, a bird that flushed without thecustomary whirr--he was quite apt to miss.
Little by little, as he followed Mr. Kincaid, he learned the habits ofhis game: where it was to be found according to time of day and seasonof year. Strangely enough this he never analyzed. He did not consciouslysay 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 afterroosting in the swamps." His processes of judgment were moreinstinctive. By dint of repeated experience of finding birds in certaincover, 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 theway good hunters are made.
All day long thus they would tramp, forcing their way through theblackthorn thickets; clambering over and under the dead-falls and debrisof the slashings; climbing the side hills with the straight, silveryshafts of the poplars; wandering down the narrow aisles of the oldlogging roads; plodding doggedly across the unproductive fields that laybetween patches of cover; always lured on in the hope of more gamefarther on, picking up a bird here, a bird there, each an adventure initself. And occasionally, once in a great while, they ran against aglorious piece of luck, when the grouse rose in twos and threes, thisway, that, and the other, until the air seemed full of them. Mr.Kincaid, very intent, shot and loaded as fast as he was able. Sometimesthings went right, and the bag was richer by two or three birds. Againthey went wrong. The first grouse to rise might be the farthest away.Mr. Kincaid would snap-shoot at it, only to be overwhelmed, after hisgun was empty, by a half dozen flushing under his very feet. Or a missat an easy first would spell humiliation all along the line. Then Bobbyand Duke would be much cast down.
"Thing to do," said Mr. Kincaid, "is to shoot one bird at a time. If youget to thinking of the second before you've killed the first, you won'tget 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 hadtouched the horizon and the world was turning cold and gray. Then camethe long laden tramp back to old Bucephalus, or perhaps to town, if theyhad started out afoot. They were always very tired; but, as to Bobby, atleast, very happy.
Generally speaking they wandered through the country at will. Shootingwas not then as popular as it is now, nor the farms as close together.Sometimes, however, they came across signs warning against trespass orhunting. Then, if the cover seemed especially desirable, Mr. Kincaidused sometimes to try to obtain permission of the owner of the land.Once or twice, having overlooked the sign, they were ordered off. Thefarmers were good-natured, even though firm.
But some four miles to the eastward lay a deep long swamp following thewindings between hills where Mr. Kincaid and Bobby had a verydisagreeable experience. It was late in the afternoon, so Bobby hadbecome 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 thestump there until I come out."
Bobby did so. A moment or so after Mr. Kincaid had disappeared, thelittle boy became aware of a man approaching across the stump-dottedfield. He was a short, thickset man, with a broad face almost entirelycovered 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 waswithin hearing. "What do you mean by hunting here? You must have passedright by the sign."
"Don't you want shooting here? No; we didn't see the sign," repliedBobby.
By this time the man had approached, and Bobby could see his bloodshotlittle eyes flickering with anger.
"You lying little snipe," he roared. "You must have seen the sign. Youcouldn't help it. I've a mind to tan your hide good."
"What's this?" asked Mr. Kincaid's
quiet voice.
The man whirled about.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" he snarled. "Well, what do you mean bytrespassing on my farm?"
"I didn't know it was your farm, in the first place; and I didn't knowshooting was prohibited in the second place."
"That's too thin. You came right by that sign at the corner. Now justmake tracks off this farm about as fast as you can go."
"Certainly," agreed Mr. Kincaid, quite unruffled. "I never shoot on aman's land when he doesn't want me to."
He turned, and at once the man became abusive, just as a dog gainscourage as his enemy passes. Bobby listened, his eyes wide with dismayand shock. Never had he heard quite that sort of language. Finally Mr.Kincaid happened to glance down at his small companion. He slipped theshells from his gun and leaned it against a stump.
"About face!" he said sharply to the man. "You can't talk that waybefore this baby. We are going off your place as straight and as fast aswe can. You shoulder your pitchfork and go back to your house."
The man started again on a string of objurgation.
"I mean what I say," said Mr. Kincaid with deadly emphasis. "About face.If you open your mouth again I shall certainly kill you."
The old man's bent shoulders had straightened, his mild blue eye flashedfire. So he must have looked to his soldiers before the storming ofMolino del Rey. His hands were quite empty of a weapon, and his age washardly a match for the other's brute strength. Nevertheless the farmerat once turned back, after a parting, but milder, admonition.
Mr. Kincaid picked up his gun, tucked it under his arm and trudgedforward. Bobby was trembling violently with excitement and anger.
"Why--why--" he gasped, as yet unable to cast his thoughts into speech.
Mr. Kincaid glanced down. A faint and amused smile flickered under hismoustache.
"You aren't going to do that sort of a crank the honour of keepingstirred up, are you?" "That's Pritchard--the worst crank in Michigan.He's quarrelled with every one. I never did know where his farm was, orI should have taken pains to keep off."
They climbed into the cart and drove away toward town.
"I believe I'll make a hunter of you, Bobby," pursued Mr. Kincaid afterthey were going. "It's a good thing to be. Of course there's the fun ofit--the 'pats,' the quail, the jacksnipe, the 'cock. But then there'sthe other part, too."
"I MEAN WHAT I SAY," SAID MR. KINCAID WITH DEADLYEMPHASIS]
They had come out on the sandhills over the town. Mr. Kincaid drew upBucephalus and contemplated it as it lay below them, its roofs halfhidden in the mauve and lilac of bared branches, its columns of smokerising straight up in the frosty air.
"Of course, I don't know, Bobby, whether you'll ever be a hunter or not.It all depends on where you live and how--the chance to get out, I mean.But, sonny, you can always be a sportsman, whatever you do. A sportsmandoes things because he likes them, Bobby, for no other reason--not formoney, nor to become famous, nor even to win--although all these thingsmay come to him and it is quite right that he take them and enjoy them.Only he does not do the things for them, but for the pleasure of doing.And a right man does not get pleasure in doing a thing if in any way hetakes an unfair advantage. That's being a sportsman. And, after all,that's all I can teach you if we hunt together ten years. Do you thinkyou can remember that?"
"Yes, sir," replied Bobby soberly.
"There's only one other thing," went on Mr. Kincaid, "that is reallyimportant, and it isn't necessary if you remember the other things I'vetold you. It's pretty easy sometimes to do a thing because you seeeverybody else doing it. Always remember that a true sportsman in everyway is about the scarcest thing they make--and the finest. So naturallythe common run of people don't live up to it. If _you_--not the thinkingyou, nor even the conscience you, but the way-down-deep-in-your-heart_you_ that you can't fool nor trick nor lie to--if that _you_ issatisfied, it's all right." He turned and grinned humorously at hissmall companion. "I've nothing but a little income and an old horse andtwo dogs and a few friends, Bobby; I've lived thirty years in thatlittle place there; and a great many excellent people call me agood-for-nothing old loafer, but I've learned the things I'm telling younow, and I'm just conceited and stuck-up enough to think I've made ahowling success of it."
"_I_ don't think that," said Bobby, laying his cheek against the man'sthreadbare sleeve.
"Of course you don't, Bobby," said Mr. Kincaid cheerfully, "and I'lltell you why. It's because you and I speak the same language, althoughyou're a little boy and I'm a big man."