Grant Harlson swung his maul and delighted in what was about him, and breathed the crisp October air, scented with the spice bushes he cut to clear the way, and pondered less and less upon the puzzles of the Hindoo king.  His mood was all robust, and when he visited the town he was a wonder to Mrs. Rolfston, who was infatuated with the savagery of his wooing and madly discontent with the certainty that she must lose him.  She made wild propositions, which he laughed at.  She would remove to the city; she would do many things.  He said only that the present was good, and that she was fair to look upon.  And from her he would go to his other sweetheart, the great maul, and be faithful for six days of the seven.  He did not work as late of afternoons now.  He was enjoying life again in the old healthful, boyish way.

He had a friend from town with him, too—­a setter, with Titian hair and big eyes, which slept on the clover beside him, and an afternoon or two a week he would take dog and gun and go where the ruffed grouse were or where a flock of wild turkeys had their haunts among the beech trees.  He would announce, with much presumption and assurance, at some farm-house door, that he would be over for dinner to-morrow, and that it would be a game dinner, and that he would leave the game with them on his way back that same evening.  There would be chaffings and expressions of doubt as to reliance upon such promise and “First catch your rabbit” comment, but they were not earnest words, for his ability as a mighty hunter was well known.

Craft and patience are required when the wild turkey is to be secured, for it is wise in its generation, and will carry lead, but it is worth the trouble, for no pampered gobbler of the farm-yard has meat of its rich flavor.  Beech-nuts and berries make diet for a bird for kings to eat.  And when Harlson brought a couple of noble young turkeys to the board the banquet was a great one, and the boys pitched quoits that night no better for it.  A good thing is the wild turkey, but even a better thing, when his numbers and quality are considered, is the ruffed grouse, the partridge of the North, the pheasant of the South.  How, in the lake region, he dawdles among the low-land thornberry bushes in autumn, how he knows of many things to eat beside the thorn-apples, and how plump he gets, and how cunning!  How watchful he is, how knowing of covert, and with what a burst he lifts himself from his hiding-place and whirls away between the tree-trunks!  How quick the eye and hand to catch him when he rises from the underbrush and is out of sight in the wood before the untrained sportsman stops him with what is little more than a snapshot, so instantaneously must all be done!  Yet what a dignified thing is he, and how easy to find by one who knows his ways and what hold habit has upon his gray-brown majesty.  Should the sudden shot fail, there is the fatal weakness of the bird of flying, as the bee flies, straight as an arrow