Chet knew that meant the partridge had squatted, would run no more. Forced to move now, the bird would fly. He waited for a long half minute, but the partridge waited also. So Chet, rather than walk in among the trees and spoil his chance for a shot, stooped to pick up a stone, intending to toss it in and frighten the bird to wing. When he stooped, out of position to shoot, he heard the drum of pinions and saw rise not one partridge but two. They swept across the open below him, unbelievably swift, and Chet whipped up his gun and fired once and then again. And never a feather fell. The birds on set wings glided out of his sight into the edge of an evergreen growth down the hill where it would be hopeless to try for a shot at them again. And Job pursued them. As the birds rose the dog had raced forward. As they disappeared among the tops of the low hemlocks the dog went out of sight after them. Ejecting the empty shells from his gun, Chet swore at himself for his poor shooting and swore at Job for breaking shot and loudly commanded the dog to return. Job did not do so; did not even respond when Chet put his whistle to his lips and blew. So the man started after the dog, whose bell he could faintly hear, and promised to find Job and teach him a thing he needed to know. He started toward the cover, whistling and shouting for Job to come to heel. When he was half way across the open Job did emerge from the shelter of the evergreens, and he came toward Chet at a swift trot, head held high. Chet started to abuse him. And then when the dog was still half a dozen rods away he saw that Job carried a cock partridge in his mouth. The bird, wounded unto death, had flown to the last wing beat far into the wood. And Job pursuing had found the game and was fetching it in. For consistency’s sake and for the dog’s sake Chet should still have punished Job--should still have made him understand that to break shot was iniquity. But--Chet was human and much too warm-hearted to be a disciplinarian. Perhaps he is not to be blamed for praising Job after all. Certainly the man did praise the dog, so that Job’s dog brain was given again to understand that if he chased a bird and caught it he would be applauded. The fault dwelt in him thereafter. “I tried to break him all his life,” Chet will say. “I put a rope on him and a choke collar and I shook him up--everything I knew. It wan’t no good. But it was my fault in the beginning. I never really blamed Old Tantry--never could.” IV