At Grand Junction

The quail that live on the Old Hancock Place near Grand Junction, Tenn. were "fixin','' as southerners say, to pair off, and a pair of quail is harder for a dog to smell than a bevy. Also, it rained hard, washing the game smells out of the air. The Setter Katie Dee ran a great three hours in the wet, but then the judges voted a postponement and the National Championship Bird Dog Trials were not finished until last week.

Feagin's Mohawk Pal, with two legs on the cup, made his run in heavy going. Friends of the setter in the historic Pointer v. Setter argument were disturbed when this dog and his setter brace mate were penalized for false finds. But everyone was satisfied that Mohawk Pal found game enough to qualify for the finals.

A wind was coming up when Oilman Walter Teagle's defending champion, the Pointer Mary Blue (TIME, March 3) was set down. She found one less bevy--six to seven--than her brace mate, the Setter Rod M's Dan. But all could see she was the fresher dog at the finish. For half a heat in another brace the pointer bitch called Brighthurst Mary Proctor ran so brilliantly that she looked like a champion, but suddenly she folded up and it was Mary Blu against Feagin's Mohawk Pal-- the pointer-setter final everyone had wanted to see.

They ran for an hour and a half. It might have been luck that Mohawk Pal found the birds first, or just that he was keener that day. But no backer of pointers would make excuses for Mary Blue: the event was not arguable. Pal won with five finds. White, black, tan and ticked, stanch and stylish, fast and independent, he is owned by E, M. Tutwiler of Birmingham, Ala. and was handled by Forrest Dean of Wheeler, Ala. Besides permanent possession of the Merriman cup, his win brought $1,500.*

Although it is possible for a dog-owner to win permanent possession of a National Championship cup with three different dogs, strangely enough such has never been the case. The only other three-time winners were William Ziegler Jr. of Manhattan and Louis Lee Haggin (nephew of Artist Ben AH Haggin), Owner Ziegler in each case with Mary Montrose (1917, 1919, 1920), Owner Haggin with Becky Broom Hill (1922, 1923, 1925).

*For an account of another setter who has beaten Pointer Mary Blue, sea p. 4.

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