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32 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S I got the sleeping bag, wrote a note, grabbed a couple of Vienna sausages and a box of crackers, and headed for the door, disturbed when I seemed again to hear a shred of ghostly tinkle. I shook my head and it did not stop. This I considered a bad sign. The phone rang, and I dropped the box of crackers in reaching for it. "Did you find your dog?" came a solicitous voice. "This is one of the guys with the muzzleloaders." "Nope," I said. "I'm going out there again now." "Try your kennel," the man said. "We put him in there." Danny was there, all right, his bell notes carrying faintly to the house. He'd finally checked in with the strangers, evidently assuming that anyone he chose would bring him home. The next time he got lost, I sat down on a hill at dusk and fired three dollars worth of shotgun shells into the air. Danny's spirit-like white form finally materialized from a deep arroyo. "If I ever kill a bird over that clown, I'll buy him a steak!" I promised Debie, mentally adding up the initial cost, the dog food, vet bills, some kennel fees, and the $300 electric collar. I took Danny out to the wheatfields when the mountain shadows were stretching and the winding, wet-weather creeks that cut through the big fields looked like jagged black slashes in the yellow stubble. At evening the Huns drift out into the grainfields to feed, and in a distant field I can see Danny. Danny sprinted along one of the draws, showing mild interest in a jackrabbit while I fingered the button but never pushed it. He checked the other side of the ditch and then seemed magnetized toward the open field. He went with his head high, and his tail went up, too. Then he stopped suddenly, cat-walked 15 feet, and did the whole number—head high, white tail like a plume, and an intense look in his eye that would have pleased his folks. I stumbled up a little to one side so he could see me and was even with his nose when the Huns twittered up, a little far out but within range. They swung hard right, followed by the gun muzzle, which it seemed would never catch up. One bird and let the others go, I thought, just as if I habitually make doubles. Bang! The bird came down hard, a pair of feathers hanging in the air. Danny ran a little way and watched the others out of sight. Then he found the dead one and ran around aimlessly with it. That, of course, I told myself, was a retrieve. I was a little surprised somehow to find it was just like any other Hun. I would not have been surprised if it had carried a silver plate with Danny's registration number on it. It had been a long, hard way, and I suppose I should have announced to the world that I had a setter that would do it all. But I have viewed these miraculous things before. That was last year. This season he may have retired from bird hunting entirely. n touch the button for fear he might be on point or even heading in, and after bird season opened I did considerable sprinting for high vantage points. Most of our hunting was for Hungarian partridge in a single area, as I thought familiarity with the terrain might help me find him in an emergency. The emergencies occurred regularly. T he country is a series of ravines leading up to Sheep Mountain, which bulges out of the high-grass country. Clumps of cottonwood and occasional aspens grow in the grassy coulees, where the Huns can be found throughout the season. Resting Huns are generally along the edges of the draws where the cover is not too thick, sometimes in their standard coveys of a dozen or so birds, sometimes scattered in twos and threes, and occasionally bunched up in larger groups. When a dog points one of the big bunches and I walk them up, they're likely to divide up, with each of the original coveys heading toward its home territory. About half the time the Huns get up wild anyway—the adult Hun not being noted as a good dog- training subject, generally standing in grass thin enough that he can observe a dog's progress, his apprehension building while he discusses the situation with his buddies. Coveys are apt to be a considerable distance apart, and I would not say such hunting is conducive to reducing Danny's range, but since I didn't have any pen-raised quail, I had to go with the Huns, or rather somewhat behind them. On a day reserved for hunting with muzzleloaders, I had started out fairly early in the futile hope of tiring Danny a little. He was wearing his electric collar, and his bell jangled busily through the little brush patches, but we didn't find any birds for a while, and that was my undoing. I heard some thumping noises a long way off toward the mountain, and when I found a pair of specks and put my binoculars on them, I made out a couple of muzzleloader hunters who were doing considerable shooting, each shot marked by a white bloom of smoke. It was a little later that Danny and his tinkle disappeared. The whistle did no good, so after a couple of hours I headed to where I thought I might intercept the lads with the charcoal burners. They hadn't seen any dog, they said, but they looked at each other, appearing a little relieved. Did my dog have a bell, they wanted to know. It seems they had been hearing a mysterious tinkling in the draws all around them but had never sighted anything. I assured them that the muzzleloaders hadn't started their heads ringing. By that time, however, the tinkling had ceased, and at dark I went back to town to get the camping equipment I use when Danny makes one of his wider casts. My wife wasn't home and as I went into the darkened house I decided my six months of Danny had been enough. I was tired, and through the back of my groggy brain ran the faint tinkle of Danny's bell. I shook my head violently and it stopped. I was sure he'd had his little wind-sprint and was ready to settle down, but while I blasted on the whistle and screamed promises of raw steak and a new doghouse, he passed me full bore at a distance of 20 yards without turning his head and did a couple of miles in the opposite direction.