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Jules was in some pretty fancy company, all right. Running alongside him that day were two solid, wide-ranging Pointers: a liver and white Rip Rap dog and a slippery lemon Elhew bitch Blume swore by. Rounding out the field were his pride and joy, a breath-taking English setter he called Babe and another Brittany, one almost twice the size of my little Jules.
We hadn't gone far, perhaps only a few hundred yards when Jules dropped out of sight. Blume’s highly esteemed dog trainer/handler was the first to locate him. “Your dog is down over here," Joe cryptically announced, his condescension purposefully unmasked, “Maybe he’s got a rabbit!”
“Oh boy; now they’re reading my mind,” I thought to myself.
As I topped the little rise that stretched before us, a beautiful composition began to unfold. Jules hung rock solid on the far side of a naked wash, his back foot still raised as if frozen in mid-stride, his head faced forward while his eyes were locked in hard to the left. Somewhere under that big cottonwood log and brush top breathed game — A bunny perhaps! One by one, each of the other dogs arrived: first, the Setter with her beautiful, white flowing flag, then the cat walking Brittany, and finally, the wide running Pointers with their twelve-o’clock high tails. Each, honoring Jules’ find, fell into his own exquisite cast iron point, until finally the painting was complete. Slowly we walked in amongst them. At the last possible moment, Blume turned to me, and with a little smile, kicked the old cottonwood log. The explosion was startling even for hunters who'd been there many, many times before. It seemed like every quail in West Texas was huddled up under that log.
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