Later in the afternoon we get among bob-white in a grassy tract, and
while they are clean work--good dog-play, and altogether more
satisfactory shooting than any other I know of--I am yet much inclined
to the excitement of chasing after game which you can see at intervals.
Let it not be supposed that it is less difficult to hit a running blue
quail as he shoots through the brush than a flying bob-white, for the
experience of our party has settled that, and one gets ten shots at the
blue to one at the bob-white, because of their number. As to eating, we
could not tell the difference; but I will not insist that this is final.
A man who comes in from an all day's run in the brush does not care
whether the cook gives him boiled beans, watermelon, or crackers and
jam; so how is he to know what a bird's taste is when served to a tame
appetite?
At intervals we ran into the wild cattle which threaded their way to
water, and it makes one nervous. It is of no use to say "Soo-bossy," or
to give him a charge of No. 6; neither is it well to run. If the
_matadores_ had any of the sensations which I have experienced, the gate
receipts at the bull-rings would have to go up. When a big long-horn
fastens a quail-shooter with his great open brown eye in a chaparral
thicket, you are not inclined to "call his hand." If he will call it a
misdeal, you are with him.
We were banging away, the Quartermaster and I, when a human voice began
yelling like mad from the brush ahead.
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