Chapter 26: The fight over grouse
"Woof!!"
Xiongba chased after the rabbit the moment he saw it.
After running about 30 meters, he pinned down one rabbit and bit it, while the other ran away.
"Well done!"
Lin Heng watched Xiongba bite the rabbit back and praised him.
"Awoooo~"
Xiongba raised his head and made a happy sound, motioning Lin Heng to catch the rabbit.
"What a pity, I still lack experience, otherwise I could catch two." Lin Heng took the rabbit and sighed deeply, feeling it was a pity, this might be the only harvest this afternoon.
After weighing it, this gray rabbit weighed four or five pounds, and it was scared to death when Xiongba bit it.
The price of rabbit skin is about the same as that of squirrel skin, four or five yuan per piece. The valuable ones are suede skin, fox skin, mink skin, antelope skin, leopard skin, and black bear skin are even more valuable.
In this era, Qinling Mountains are rich in materials, and these things are available, but the quantity is not as much as that of Daxinganling Mountains.
"Lin Heng, what did you get?"
At this time, the voice of my uncle Li Baiquan came from not far away.
After chopping trees for two hours, he saw Yan coming over when he was resting.
"A wild rabbit, caught by Xiongba." Lin Heng said with a smile.
"What a good dog, where did you catch it?" My uncle was envious, this dog was much smarter than his dog.
"I picked it up in the town, I didn't expect it to be so smart." Lin Heng said with a smile.
"Then when it grows up, breed it for my dog, my dog happens to be female." My uncle looked at Xiongba and said.
"That's no problem." Lin Heng agreed.
My uncle looked at Xiongba again, squatted down and touched it, his eyes full of love, the dog's skeleton was so tall, it looked unusual.
"Let's go, let's look around and see if there are other prey."
My uncle is also a hunter, and his skills are pretty good. At this time, he also got itchy and took Lin Heng's slingshot and was eager to try.
Walking into the Tongshu Valley on this side of the mountain, the forest gradually became taller.
Uncle Li Baiquan took a slingshot and shot everywhere to practice his skills. Lin Heng followed Xiongba to look for prey.
"Hey, it's Gastrodia elata."
Suddenly, Lin Heng stopped and looked at the plant in front of him and said, this is the stem of Gastrodia elata, orange-yellow, more than one meter high, with small flower spikes on it, but it has not bloomed.
Like mushrooms, Gastrodia elata grows parasitically using mycelium. It only produces flower swords in May and June every year, and they will disappear soon. Unlike ordinary plants, it has leaves and can photosynthesize.
Generally, where there is Gastrodia elata, there must be honey fungus, because Gastrodia elata coexists with this kind of mushroom, which is a very strange phenomenon in nature.
Although it is quite strange, the purchase price of Gastrodia elata is not expensive. Lin Heng took a look, took a knife and cut an X-shaped mark on several trees next to it, and left.
Now is not the time to dig Gastrodia elata. The Gastrodia elata in July and August is the best and the most plump.
"Oh, I should have called you, Lin Heng, and I let a hairy mouse run away."
At this time, the regretful voice of my uncle Li Baiquan came from the front. It was obvious that he made a mistake in hunting the hairy mouse.
A hairy mouse is a squirrel, which is called this in the local dialect, because the squirrel has a lot of hair on its tail.
"I may not be able to hit it, the squirrel is too small." Lin Heng shook his head.
"Let's go over there and see. I don't believe that we can't catch a prey today." The uncle-in-law said unwillingly, and walked through the Tongshugou to a taller forest.
Lin Heng looked at the sky and estimated that it was around five or six o'clock. It would be dark at half past seven, so he could still explore.
If he hadn't built a house recently, he would have wanted to explore the deep mountains for a few days. There are more animals in places close to human habitation only in autumn.
The real large prey are all in the deep mountains and old forests.
"Woof woof!!"
After walking into the forest for a while, Xiongba suddenly called again, and Lin Heng hurried over.
"Well done, it's another field of morels."
Lin Heng couldn't stop laughing as he watched Xiongba shaking his head and tail at him. His sense of smell for finding mushrooms was simply amazing.
"Awoo~~"
Xiongba squinted his eyes when Lin Heng touched him, enjoying it very much.
"Your dog can also find mushrooms?" The uncle-in-law came over and was even more envious.
His dog wouldn't have such a powerful skill.
"Yes, I just discovered it too." Lin Heng smiled, this is indeed Xiongba's unique trick.
The morels on the ground here are another kind of delicious morels, which look fatter and have light yellow wrinkles on the surface.
It looks cuter than the black-veined morels and tastes more fragrant. It is the most delicious among the morels.
A total of more than 30 were picked, weighing almost two kilograms. This harvest made Lin Heng's face full of smiles.
It's good to have a dog that can find mushrooms. People have limited vision in the forest, and the environment is complicated, so it's easy to miss mushrooms.
Dogs can easily find it with their sensitive sense of smell, even some mushrooms covered under leaves cannot escape their noses.
Uncle Li Baiquan looked at Xiongba and wanted to take him home immediately. How could Lin Heng find such a good dog? He was so lucky.
"Gada, Gada!!"
At this moment, the call of grouse suddenly came from a distance, and then the grouse was seen flapping its wings and flying through the sky, landing in the pine forest a few hundred meters away.
"It's a black-mouthed grouse!"
Lin Heng and his uncle-in-law showed surprise at the same time, and hurried to the place where the grouse fell.
Although grouse are not big in size, and the largest one weighs only two kilograms, their meat is much tastier than pheasants, and is about the same as bamboo partridges, second only to the top delicacy of golden pheasants.
"Woof woof!"
Before he got there, Xiongba suddenly barked.
Lin Heng glanced at him and scolded, "Don't bark, be careful not to scare the grouse away."
"Awoo~"
Xiongba barked again with some grievance.
Before Lin Heng understood what he meant, there was a sound of footsteps in the distance, and then an old man in military green camouflage clothes came out with a hunting rifle in his hand.
"I found this black-mouthed grouse, you go somewhere else." The old man glanced at Lin Heng and the others and said first.
"Grandpa Tian, you are being unreasonable. We got here together, why do you say you found it yourself?"
My uncle-in-law Li Baiquan spoke first, very dissatisfied.
This old man was none other than Tian Baishun, the old hunter in the village, the old man Lin Heng met when he first came back from the mountain.
"Bullshit, I've been here for a long time. Of course I found it. If you don't leave, I won't be polite." Tian Baishun cursed in a low voice. If he wasn't afraid of scaring the grouse away, his spit would have hit Li Baiquan's face. "Old man, you should leave. The grouse flew over from the ditch below. You can't scare them." Lin Heng didn't give in. Just kidding, there are several grouse. Tian Baishun glanced at the bow and arrow in Lin Heng's hand, and his cloudy eyes turned, revealing a shrewd look: "Since you don't want to leave, how about we have a competition?" "Compare?" Lin Heng frowned and looked at Tian Baishun: "How to compare?" Some people may ask why the background is in Qinling Mountains, because the author lives in this mountain range and is more familiar with the local customs and practices here. He is not familiar with the Greater Khingan Mountains in Northeast China, so he chose one that he is familiar with. And there are many prey in Qinling Mountains, but there are very few now. When my dad was a child, around 1990, he saw clouded leopards and wolves.