At the very peep of day Collie Dog and Setter Pup started out on a hunting trip of their own. Collie Dog called the place "my farm" and he had told his friend of all the wonderful sights there were to be seen on the place by a dog who could travel alone and do as he wanted. It was his habit, he said, to be abroad very early; sometimes, indeed, he would run over the fields and along the shore, or back into the woodland, for miles and miles before breakfast.
 
"And what do you do that for?" Setter Pup asked. For this youngster was just from the city, and he was not used to these country ways. "We never get up until long after the man with the milk cans has gone by the door, and the postman has come and gone," he yawned. "That's the proper thing in town."
 
Collie Dog laughed in a courteous¹ way.
 
"And we get up before the milk cans start for town," he said. "That is, some of us do. But they'll take you out early enough when the hunting begins. And you'll be pointing birds all day in the fields and the swamps."
 
Setter Pup waved his tail proudly, for he meant to be a great hunter. That was why they had him in the country now—to teach him all sorts of things about guns and what to do when he smelt² a covey of birds.
 
But Collie Dog was no hunter, being more of a scholar and a poet. His master, at any rate, had read him a great deal of poetry. And much of the poetry had been of a nature to discourage hunting; which was just what the doggie's master liked to do. He was thoroughly³ in sympathy with his pet, who couldn't endure a gun, either the sight or the sound of it. But, much as the gentleman knew about the fields and the woods, he would have known more could he have understood what Collie Dog would have loved to tell him. For that gentle dog was on the best of terms with every living creature for miles around. His early morning expeditions were always but so many rounds of visits.
 
Consequently, the newcomer, this eager and noisy young setter, was to make many new acquaintances on this daybreak excursion with Collie Dog.
 
Down the lane from the barn to the pasture they romped⁵, the dew drenching⁶ their flanks as they brushed the tall weeds and bushes. Setter Pup, with his ears flapping in excitement, was plunging⁷ heedlessly ahead when Collie Dog called him back.
 
"Go easy here! We are sure to hear something," Collie Dog whispered.
 
And suddenly, while they walked almost on tip-toe, there came from the very edge of the field, a clear, ringing call:
 
"Bob! Bob! Bob!"
 
"Why, who can be down here in the hayfield at this time of the morning?" Setter Pup asked in surprise.
 
"Just wait!" laughed Collie Dog, delighted.
 
"Bob, Bob, Bob-White!"
 
The voice was as clear as a boy's.
 
"That's my best friend out here," Collie Dog explained. "It's little Mr. Partridge."
 
Then very quickly the beautiful, trim little Mr. Partridge hopped⁸ clear of the tangled⁹ grass and stood gaily¹⁰ on the fence-rail. He was speckled and shapely and his eyes were full of wonderful humor. But he caught sight of the strange dog, and was gone in a second. Then, to Setter Pup's great astonishment¹¹, there were many little voices, and wild scuttlings in the very path ahead of him. And two beautiful partridges, their wings apparently¹² broken, were hobbling along almost before his very nose. They were dying, as it seemed.
 
Setter Pup was all for seizing them. Two such crippled creatures were easy prey¹³. But his instincts were, after all, of another sort; for, although he had never done it before, he stood stock still and pointed¹⁴ his nose straight at the birds, his tail stretched out like a long plume¹⁵ behind him.
 
Collie Dog shook with laughter.
 
"Well, that gun shooting master of yours would be proud of you if he could see you now," he said. "You're pointing straight as a weather vane. But we're not out hunting birds this morning. Come here, and I'll show you something."
 
Setter Pup dropped his tail and stepped back. Then Collie Dog came softly up to the little birds that were cowering¹⁶ in the path. They knew him well enough. Even if he was a dog, he was a friend; and if there is a creature who knows a friend and would be on terms of friendship with the whole world it is Mr. Bob-White.
 
They were even pleased to meet young Setter Pup, when they found out that he was staying at the farm. They could not believe that a personal friend of their wonderful Collie Dog could be ill-disposed to such as the partridge family.
 
And Mr. Bob-White talked about "our farm" exactly as though it were his own. He said that he and his family could surely keep down the potato bugs¹⁷ that year; and that if it could only be known what his intentions were in this matter of eating up the pests that canker and destroy, he was sure no one would want to kill him.
 
"You always say that, poor Mr. Bob-White, and how I pity you," the gentle Collie Dog replied. For he was as quick to weep as to laugh, being so refined a dog. "And it's a shame. My master reads to me all about you. And we get very indignant when we think of how you are the one thing that these farmers can depend upon to eat up more bugs than anybody else could ever devour¹⁸. You're so much better than poison and all the rest of the truck they sprinkle around."
 
"Yes; the poison just washes off in the rain. My family, if only we could be let alone, would do it all. Didn't you tell me that my cousin down in Texas ate up all the boll weevils in a county full of cotton?"
 
"That's the truth," answered Collie Dog. "Master read it to me. But you're safe enough on this farm anyway. You know that. My friend Setter Pup is not going to hunt here at all."
 
"And I shall never hunt partridges—never!" declared Setter Pup, who was sadly distressed¹⁹. "I wish I had never been born"—he was crying now—"if I have to hunt down such folks as Mr. Partridge." For poor Setter Pup had found that he possessed²⁰ a heart; and that discovery is the most distressing²¹ one in the world.
 
"Oh, you'll get over that," Collie Dog comforted him. "You'll have to. Your master will attend to you. But I'm sorry for you. And just look at these baby partridges."
 
One by one, as Mrs. Partridge had cluc............