"That's what;" replied Hugh. "They're good now, only they're a little mite skeery yet, but they'll soon get over that. I don't know as I ever saw a team that promised better. They're right quiet, too, when you get 'em going." Just as he said this, a great bird rose with a roar of wings, almost under the horses' feet, and the right quiet animals, turning at right angles, bolted over the prairie, the waggon bumping and bouncing over the sage-brush in a way that made the two men hold on for dear life, while Jack, who was sitting between them, clung to the back of the seat, somewhat uneasy lest he should be thrown over the dashboard. Gradually Hugh checked the horses' speed and turned them back to the road, and when they were again quiet, he looked down at Jack and said to him, with a twinkle of fun in his eye: "I expect this prairie isn't as smooth as some of your park roads back in the States, my son." "My, no! It bumped, didn't it? and I don't think your horses are so very quiet yet, Mr. Hugh. But what was that big bird that made such a noise when it flew up? Was it a partridge? I've heard about the noise they make getting up, but I didn't suppose they were as big as that." "That was a sage hen, my son. You'll see lots of them before night. It's getting along towards nesting time for them, and maybe we'll find some nests, and maybe get some young ones this spring. I've raised a brood or two, but they always went off after they got big. Along in the fall, say in October, just before it gets cold weather, they get together in big droves, hundreds and hundreds together, and stay like that all winter. They're big, but they ain't much account. They taste too strong of the sage. The young ones about half grown are good eating, though not near so good as the blue grouse or the pheasant. Now, you take young blue grouse, just when they are feeding on the little red huckleberries that grow on the mountains, and, I tell you, they are tender and as nice tasting as any bird there is. There's as much difference between them and these sage hens as there is between a nice fat yearling mountain sheep in October and an old buck antelope at the same time of the year."