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S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S • 113 me to follow, Max was off, as if he were a coon hunter who had just heard the eager yapping that tells of a treed coon. It was clear now that the bird was so far away that, with ordinary caution, no ears, however keen, could detect us. Only a nose was equal to that task. But it would be presumptuous, and of no use besides, to suggest that to a German gamekeeper, so I let Max run and listened again. When I found him a second time he kept fast hold of my arm till the call began, apparently much nearer than before. Like the partridge's drumming, it was strangely deceptive as to distance and location. By this time the excitement of the hunt had gotten hold of me, making me forget the naturalist. I dashed after the keeper, our nerves tingling exuberantly as the bushes crashed about us, and the heavy whirring rushed by our ears continuously. Then we stopped, with hearts thumping audibly in the silence and darkness of the morning woods. So we went for half an hour, now rushing on heedlessly, now cowering with bated breath, now with quick thrills of expectancy tingling down our backs as the strange P oor Max, finding himself alone, was in terror lest I should alarm the game by disobeying instructions, for once the auerhahn is heard, you must not stir a muscle except when he is booming. Max knew of my love for wild things, and had questioned and listened for hours to my accounts of New World animals and hunting. He had set his honest heart on my getting this bird, which he assured me afterwards was probably the only old cock on the whole mountain. I almost ran against him in the darkness before he learned my whereabouts, and then he almost had a fit, so great was his fear that I would alarm the shy game and drive it away. The German hunter, so far as I have met and known him, knows nothing of stalking or still-hunting. Max would listen incredulously when I told him that you can walk upon any animal if you first learn to walk like an animal, and he would say finally: "Wait till you try the auerhahn." Now that the chance had come, he was scared into a perspiration lest I would attempt it. He was motioning imploringly for silence when heavy booming rang through the woods again. With a shout for say nothing of a beaver. The path opened as we ascended, and now a rugged dark line was seen faintly outlined against the sky; it was the hilltop between us and the morning. We were both listening with heads bent, Max for the first sounds of our game, I for a faint rustle below that would tell of a deer stealing away from its covert. Then, from far up among the firs, a heavy, booming sound came rushing downward through the startled woods. "Schnelll Schnell! There he is; come on!" yelled Max, all noise and excitement in a minute, and away he raced, crashing after the sound with racket enough to awaken the seven sleepers. Instead of following him, I stood in the path, trying to define the curious call. It suggested the drum of a partridge close by, only much heavier, as if a thunderbolt should rumble its wings. With the whirring came a faint clicking sound, as if voice and wings were both in use at once. The booming sound ceased suddenly, before I could determine how it was made. With it, the crashing in the bushes also ceased.