t. "I'd take the
car--want you to see how swell she runs since I put in a new piston.
But we'll take a team, so we can get right out into the fields. Not many
prairie chickens left now, but we might just happen to run onto a small
covey."
He fussed over his hunting-kit. He pulled his hip boots out to full
length and examined them for holes. He feverishly counted his shotgun
shells, lecturing her on the qualities of smokeless powder. He drew the
new hammerless shotgun out of its heavy tan leather case and made her
peep through the barrels to see how dazzlingly free they were from rust.
The world of hunting and camping-outfits and fishing-tackle was
unfamiliar to her, and in Kennicott's interest she found something
creative and joyous. She examined the smooth stock, the carved hard
rubber butt of the gun. The shells, with their brass caps and sleek
green bodies and hieroglyphics on the wads, were cool and comfortably
heavy in her hands.
Kennicott wore a brown canvas hunting-coat with vast pockets lining
the inside, corduroy trousers which bulged at the wrinkles, peeled and
scarred shoes, a scarecrow felt hat. In this uniform he felt virile.
They clumped out to the livery buggy, they packed the kit and the box of
lunch into the back, crying to each other that it was a magnificent day.
Kennicott had borrowed Jackson Elder's red and white English setter, a
complacent dog with a waving tail of silver hair which flickered in the
sunshine. As they started, the dog yelped, and leaped at the horses'
heads, till Kennicott took him into the buggy, where he nuzzled Carol's
knees and leaned out to sneer at farm mongrels.
The grays clattered out on the hard dirt road with a pleasant song of
hoofs: "Ta ta ta rat! Ta ta ta rat!" It was early and fresh, the air
whistling, frost bright on the golden rod. As the sun warmed the world
of stubble into a welter of yellow they turned from the highroad,
through the bars of a farmer's gate, into a field, slowly bumping over
the uneven earth. In a hollow of the rolling prairie they lost sight
even of the country road. It was warm and placid. Locusts trilled among
the dry wheat-stalks, and brilliant little flies hurtled across the
buggy. A buzz of content filled the air. Crows loitered and gossiped in
the sky.
The dog had been let out and after a dance of excitement he settled down
to a steady quartering of the field, forth and back, forth and back, his
nose down.
"Pete Rustad owns
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