by Farley Mowat
Now Hungarian partridges have survived and multiplied even where the hunting pressure is severest and there is good reason why this is so. Once the fusillade of opening day has alerted them, they become, for the most part, quite untouchable. Crouched invisible in the stubble, they see you long before you see them, and when you have closed to within forty or fifty yards, they burst upward like so many land mines; the flock disperses in as many directions as there are birds, and at bulletlike speed. They hit the ground running, and never stop running until they are miles away. And they seem to run just a little faster than they fly.
Our eastern friend knew all of this, in theory anyway. He was properly alert when the flock flushed at fifty yards to vanish almost immediately into a willow swale. Nevertheless, he did not even have time to pull a trigger. He was chagrined by this failure. And then to make matters worse Mutt suddenly disobeyed the cardinal bird-dog law, and without so much as an apologetic look at his companion, he raced after the vanished flock.
Our friend whistled, called him, swore at him, but to no avail. Mutt galloped away in his quaint and lopsided fashion and soon was out of sight.
We rejoined our guest at the far side of the poplar bluff, and though he had the grace to say nothing, it was easy enough to guess his thoughts. But it was not so easy to guess them when, a few minutes later, there was a great huffing and puffing from behind us and we turned to see Mutt approaching at a trot, and bearing a partridge in his mouth.
Our friend was frankly overcome.
“What the devil!” he cried. “I never fired my gun. Don’t tell me this paragon of yours doesn’t even need a gunner’s help?”
Father laughed in a condescending sort of way.
“Oh, not quite that,” he explained with his usual flair for the dramatic. “Mutt gets more birds, of course, if he has a gun to help him – but he does pretty well without. He runs them down, you know.”
Father did not bother to complete the explanation, and our friend returned to the distant east somewhat dissatisfied with his fine kennel stock, and only after a determined but useless attempt to take Mutt with him. He was a man who believed his eyes, and he did not know, as we did, that the unshot Hungarian had been a running cripple, probably wounded by another hunter sometime earlier.
Nevertheless, Mutt’s abilities in this regard were not to be treated lightly. He often spotted a cripple in a flock when we could not, and on at least a dozen different occasions he made a retrieve when we, who had not fired, were morally certain there was nothing to retrieve. We learned not to waste adrenaline cursing at him when he abandoned normal procedure and went off on his own. It was too embarrassing, apologizing to him when he returned later with a bird in his mouth.
There was no place where a wounded bird was safe from him. His strangely bulbous nose, uncouth as it appeared, was singularly efficient in the field and he could find birds that were apparently unfindable.
There were numbers of ruffed grouse in the poplar bluffs to the north of Saskatoon and occasionally we hunted these wily birds. They clung close to cover and were hard to hit. But once hit, they were always ours, for Mutt could find them though they hid in the most unlikely places.
One frosty morning near Wakaw Lake I slightly wounded a grouse and watched with disappointment as it flew across a wide intervening morass, and disappeared into the maze of upper branches of a diamond-willow clump. Mutt galloped off at once, but I was certain he would find no trace of it. Without hope I set out to follow him across the muskeg, and I was only nicely started on my way when I saw a considerable disturbance in the diamond-willow clump. The heavy growth – some twenty feet in height – began to sway and crackle. I stopped and stared, and in due time I saw a flash of white, and then beheld Mutt’s head above the crown of the tree, with the ruffed grouse in his mouth – as usual.
He had some difficulty getting back to the ground, and he was rather disheveled when he finally reached me. But he accepted my congratulations calmly. He took such things as this high-level retrieve quite for granted.
Even the open sky offered no sure sanctuary from him, for I have seen him leap six or eight feet in the air to haul down a slow-starting and slightly wounded prairie chicken or Hungarian. As for the water – the wounded duck that thought water offered safety was mortally in ignorance.
Mutt never became resigned to the oily taste of ducks, and he always brought them in by holding the tip of their wing feathers between his front teeth – with his lips curled back, as if the duck stank of some abominable odor. As a result of his distaste for them he could never bring himself to kill a duck, and this reluctance sometimes caused him trouble.
There was a time at Meota Lake when my father and I had been lucky enough to knock down five mallards with four shots. Unfortunately, the birds were all alive, and actively so, although they could not fly. Mutt went after them, but it was a very swampy shore, and it was all he could do to wade through the marsh unimpeded. It was almost impossible for him to return to firm ground with a flapping mallard in his mouth. He solved the problem by carrying his retrieves to a tiny islet in the lake, while we went off to find a boat.
When we reached the islet, a half hour later, we found a fantastic situation. There was Mutt, and there were the five ducks, but all of them were on the move. One, two, or three at a time, the ducks would waddle off toward the water, and Mutt would dash between them and freedom and herd them back to the high ground. Then he would snatch at the wing of one, sit – literally – on another, hold two down with his paws, and try to maneuver his belly over the fifth. But the fifth would manage to get free, and scuttle away. Whereupon Mutt would have to abandon all his prisoners; they would all dash off, and he would have it all to do over again. He was about at the end of his tether when we came to his rescue, and it was the only time on a hunting trip that I ever saw him really harassed. How he managed to get those five struggling birds to the island in the first place I do not know.
He had long since perfected his diving technique, and could attain depths of five feet and stay under for as long as a minute. He soon learned, too, that in the case of a deep-diving duck it was sometimes possible to tire it out by waiting on the surface at the point where it would most probably rise, and then forcing it under again before it had time to breathe.
Only once did I see him beaten by a duck – and that time it was no real duck, but a western grebe. Mutt had already retrieved a bufflehead for us, and had gone back out in the belief that a second bird awaited his attention. We could not persuade him otherwise. Knowing how useless it was to argue with him, we let him have his way, although the grebe was quite uninjured – at least by any shot of ours.
Grebes seldom fly, but they dive like fish, and Mutt spent the best part of an hour chasing that bird while Father and I concealed ourselves in the duck blind, and tried to muffle our mirth. It would never have done to let Mutt know we were amused. He did not appreciate humor when he was its butt.
He got more and more exasperated and, though the water was ten or fifteen feet deep, he finally gave up trying to tire the grebe and decided to go down after it. But he was not built for really deep diving. His buoyancy was too great, and he was badly ballasted. At the third attempt he turned-turtle under the water and popped to the surface upside down. Then and only then did he reluctantly come ashore. We set off at once to hunt grouse so that he could get the taste of defeat out of his mouth, and otherwise relieve himself of about a gallon of lake water.
Word of Mutt’s phenomenal abilities soon got around, for neither my father nor I was reticent about him. At first the local hunters were skeptical, but after some of them had seen him work, their disbelief began to change into a strong civic pride that, in due time, made Mutt’s name a byword for excellence in Saskatchewan hunting circles.
Indeed, Mutt became something of a symbol – a truly western symbol, for his feats were sometimes slightly exaggerated by his partisans for the benefit of unwary strangers – particularly if the strangers cam
e out of the east. It was an encounter between just such a stranger and some of Mutt’s native admirers that brought him to his greatest and most lasting triumph – a success that will not be forgotten in Saskatoon while there are birds, and dogs to hunt them.
It all began on one of those blistering July days when the prairie pants like a dying coyote, the dust lies heavy, and the air burns the flesh it touches. On such days those with good sense retire to the cellar caverns that are euphemistically known in Canada as beer parlors. These are all much the same across the country – ill-lit and crowded dens, redolent with the stench of sweat, spilled beer, and smoke – but they are, for the most part, moderately cool. And the insipid stuff that passes for beer is usually ice cold.
On this particular day five residents of the city, dog fanciers all, had forgathered in a beer parlor. They had just returned from witnessing some hunting-dog trials held in Manitoba, and they had brought a guest with them. He was a rather portly gentleman from the state of New York, and he had both wealth and ambition. He used his wealth lavishly to further his ambition, which was to raise and own the finest retrievers on the continent, if not in the world. Having watched his own dogs win the Manitoba trials, this man had come on to Saskatoon at the earnest invitation of the local men, in order to see what kind of dogs they bred, and to buy some if he fancied them.
He had not fancied them. Perhaps rightfully annoyed at having made the trip in the broiling summer weather to no good purpose, he had become a little overbearing in his manner. His comments when he viewed the local kennel dogs had been acidulous, and scornful. He had ruffled the local breeders’ feelings, and as a result they were in a mood to do and say foolish things.
The visitor’s train was due to leave at 4 P.M., and from 12:30 until 3 the six men sat cooling themselves internally, and talking dogs. The talk was as heated as the weather. Inevitably Mutt’s name was mentioned, and he was referred to as an outstanding example of that rare breed, the Prince Albert retriever.
The stranger hooted. “Rare breed!” he cried. “I’ll say it must be rare! I’ve never even heard of it.”
The local men were incensed by this big-city skepticism. They immediately began telling tales of Mutt, and if they laid it on a little, who can blame them? But the more stories they told, the louder grew the visitor’s mirth and the more pointed his disbelief. Finally someone was goaded a little too far.
“I’ll bet you,” Mutt’s admirer said truculently, “I’ll bet you a hundred dollars this dog can outretrieve any damn dog in the whole United States.”
Perhaps he felt that he was safe, since the hunting season was not yet open. Perhaps he was too angry to think.
The stranger accepted the challenge, but it did not seem as if there was much chance of settling the bet. Someone said as much, and the visitor crowed.
“You’ve made your brag,” he said. “Now show me.”
There was nothing for it then but to seek out Mutt and hope for inspiration. The six men left the dark room and braved the blasting light of the summer afternoon as they made their way to the public library.
The library stood, four-square and ugly, just off the main thoroughfare of the city. The inevitable alley behind it was shared by two Chinese restaurants and by sundry other merchants. My father had his office in the rear of the library building overlooking the alley. A screened door gave access to whatever air was to be found trapped and roasted in the narrow space behind the building. It was through this rear door that the delegation came.
From his place under the desk Mutt barely raised his head to peer at the newcomers, then sank back into a comatose state of near oblivion engendered by the heat. He probably heard the mutter of talk, the introductions, and the slightly strident tone of voice of the stranger, but he paid no heed.
Father, however, listened intently. And he could hardly control his resentment when the stranger stooped, peered beneath the desk, and was heard to say, “Now I recognize the breed – Prince Albert rat hound did you say it was?”
My father got stiffly to his feet. “You gentlemen wish a demonstration of Mutt’s retrieving skill – is that it?” he asked.
A murmur of agreement from the local men was punctuated by a derisive comment from the visitor. “Test him,” he said offensively. “How about that alley there – it must be full of rats.”
Father said nothing. Instead he pushed back his chair and, going to the large cupboard where he kept some of his shooting things so that they would be available for after-work excursions, he swung wide the door and got out his gun case. He drew out the barrels, fore end, and stock and assembled the gun. He closed the breech and tried the triggers, and at that familiar sound Mutt was galvanized into life and came scuffling out from under the desk to stand with twitching nose and a perplexed air about him.
He had obviously been missing something. This wasn’t the hunting season. But – the gun was out.
He whined interrogatively and my father patted his head. “Good boy,” he said, and then walked to the screen door with Mutt crowding against his heels.
By this time the group of human watchers was as perplexed as Mutt. The six men stood in the office doorway and watched curiously as my father stepped out on the porch, raised the unloaded gun, leveled it down the alley toward the main street, pressed the triggers, and said in a quiet voice, “Bang – bang – go get ’em boy!”
To this day Father maintains a steadfast silence as to what his intentions really were. He will not say that he expected the result that followed, and he will not say that he did not expect it.
Mutt leaped from the stoop and fled down that alleyway at his best speed. They saw him turn the corner into the main street, almost causing two elderly women to collide with one another. The watchers saw the people on the far side of the street stop, turn to stare, and then stand as if petrified. But Mutt himself they could no longer see.
He was gone only about two minutes, but to the group upon the library steps it must have seemed much longer. The man from New York had just cleared his throat preparatory to a new and even more amusing sally, when he saw something that made the words catch in his gullet.
They all saw it – and they did not believe.
Mutt was coming back up the alley. He was trotting. His head and tail were high – and in his mouth was a magnificent ruffed grouse. He came up the porch stairs nonchalantly, laid the bird down at my father’s feet, and with a satisfied sigh crawled back under the desk.
There was silence except for Mutt’s panting. Then one of the local men stepped forward as if in a dream, and picked up the bird.
“Already stuffed, by God!” he said, and his voice was hardly more than a whisper.
It was then that the clerk from Ashbridge’s Hardware arrived. The clerk was disheveled and mad. He came bounding up the library steps, accosted Father angrily, and cried:
“That damn dog of yours – you ought to keep him locked up. Come bustin’ into the shop a moment ago and snatched the stuffed grouse right out of the window. Mr. Ashbridge’s fit to be tied. Was the best bird in his whole collection….”
I do not know if the man from New York ever paid his debt. I do know that the story of that day’s happening passed into the nation’s history, for the Canadian press picked it up from the Star-Phoenix, and Mutt’s fame was carried from coast to coast across the land.
That surely was no more than his due.
7
BATTLE TACTICS
fter several years in Saskatoon, my family moved into a new neighborhood. River Road was on the banks of the Saskatchewan River, but on the lower and more plebeian side. The community on River Road was considerably relaxed in character and there was a good deal of tolerance for individual idiosyncrasies.
Only three doors down the street from us lived a retired schoolteacher who had spent years in Alaska and who had brought with him into retirement a team of Alaskan Huskies. These were magnificent dogs that commanded respect not only from the local canine population bu
t from the human one as well. Three of them once caught a burglar on their master’s premises, and they reduced him to butcher’s meat with a dispatch that we youngsters much admired.
Across the alley from us lived a barber who maintained a sort of Transient’s Rest for stray mongrels. There was an unkind rumor to the effect that he encouraged these strays only in order to practice his trade upon them. The rumor gained stature from the indisputable fact that some of his oddly assorted collection of dogs sported unusual haircuts. I came to know the barber intimately during the years that followed, and he confided his secret to me. Once, many years earlier, he had seen a French poodle shaven and shorn, and he had been convinced that he could devise even more spectacular hair styles for dogs, and perhaps make a fortune and a reputation for himself. His experiments were not without artistic merit, even though some of them resulted in visits from the Humane Society inspectors.
I had no trouble fitting myself into this new community, but the adjustment was not so simple for Mutt. The canine population of River Road was enormous. Mutt had to come to terms with these dogs, and he found the going hard. His long, silken hair and his fine “feathers” tended to give him a soft and sentimental look that was misleading and that seemed to goad the roughneck local dogs into active hostility. They usually went about in packs, and the largest pack was led by a well-built bull terrier who lived next door to us. Mutt, who was never a joiner, preferred to go his way alone, and this made him particularly suspect by the other dogs. They began to lay for him.
He was not by nature the fighting kind. In all his life I never knew him to engage in battle unless there was no alternative. His was an eminently civilized attitude, but one that other dogs could seldom understand. They taunted him because of it.
