id every grave give up its little inmate at the magic word? No,
barely more than half; six little balls of down unveiled their lustrous
eyes, and, rising, ran to meet him, but four feathered little bodies had
found their graves indeed. Redruff called again and again, till he
was sure that all who could respond had come, and led them from that
dreadful place, far, far away up-stream, where barb-wire fences and
bramble thickets were found to offer a less grateful, but more reliable,
shelter.

Here the brood grew and were trained by their father just as his mother
had trained him; though wider knowledge and experience gave him
many advantages. He knew so well the country round and all the
feeding-grounds, and how to meet the ills that harass partridge-life,
that the summer passed and not a chick was lost. They grew and
flourished, and when the Gunner Moon arrived they were a fine family
of six grown-up grouse with Redruff, splendid in his gleaming copper
feathers, at their head. He had ceased to drum during the summer after
the loss of Brownie, but drumming is to the partridge what singing is
to the lark; while it is his lovesong, it is also an expression of
exuberance born of health, and when the molt was over and September food
and weather had renewed his splendid plumes and braced himself up again,
his spirits revived, and finding himself one day near the old log he
mounted impulsively, and drummed again and again.

From that time he often drummed, while his children sat around, or one
who showed his father's blood would mount some nearby stump or stone,
and beat the air in the loud tattoo.

The black grapes and the Mad Moon now came on. But Redruff's blood were
of a vigorous stock; their robust health meant robust wits, and though
they got the craze, it passed within a week, and only three had flown
away for good.

Redruff, with his remaining three, was living in the glen when the snow
came. It was light, flaky snow, and as the weather was not very cold,
the family squatted for the night under the low, flat boughs of a
cedar-tree. But next day the storm continued, it grew colder, and the
drifts piled up all day. At night, the snow-fall ceased, but the frost
grew harder still, so Redruff, leading the family to a birch-tree above
a deep drift, dived into the snow, and the others did the same.
Then into the holes the wind blew the loose snow--their pure white
bed-clothes, and thus tucked in they slept in comfort, for