They ran Danny with a 20-foot checkcord streaming behind him, which should have been an omen. He was a six-month-old setter, almost entirely white, and let's face it: Danny was a field-trial castoff, his parents being seasoned campaigners of impeccable credentials.

Now I know about field-trial dogs and would never expect to follow one on my ancient legs when they are bred to be handled by people on good horses, but Danny was the age of pup I wanted and the breeder figured he wouldn't be a big goer. He also didn't hold his tail quite high enough for the field-trial business. I found later that Danny held his tail low for more effective streamlining, using it as a sort of spoiler.

Danny is not the first speedster I have owned. For a couple of years I tried to keep track of a lantern-jawed pointer named Murphy. You may have seen him passing your place at one time or another, for I have no idea where he hunted when I couldn't see him.

Murphy was very tiring. He had a propensity for becoming lost, only to stand around and yap for me--not that I could catch him when I found him--he just wanted to keep things organized and would, upon seeing me, take off again. He was a picturesque pointer occasionally, but I was seldom able to reach him before the birds went off to feed, and generally I could not even determine what species Murphy had found. I gave Murphy away, after which he won a national prairie-chicken championship in Alberta--where most of the birds are sharptail grouse.

Since I once watched Murphy run up 320 acres of sage grouse without stopping, I read with interest the account of his championship in the American Field. It seems the judges had been a little puzzled since on one occasion Murphy disappeared over a distant ridge, whereupon quite a number of birds took off from somewhere way out there. The American Field reporter said there was no way of proving that Murphy had flushed the birds, so only Murphy and I know what really happened and at this late date I see no reason for being a snitch. Back to Danny.

AS SOON AS I GOT DANNY HOME and took him out of the crate I threw a dummy for him and he retrieved it with the solemnity of a real pro, thus cementing our friendship. It was a nice gesture on his part, although he hasn't done it since.

My wife and I took Danny out to run on a broad field, and remembering the procedure at his home kennel, I left a 20-foot checkcord attached to his collar. When I turned him loose, he left.

I was not with Debie when she caught him, as she beat me to the car. She didn't have much trouble, she said, and collared him on the highway between DeLand, Florida and New Smyrna Beach, with the aid of some truck drivers who helped to corner him against a fence. She said the station wagon would run faster than Danny but he could turn quicker.

Things worked fine the second workout because Danny accidentally ran through some rodeo grounds and got confused among the chutes. All I did was vault scratchily over a board fence topped with barbed wire and I had him cornered. Each time I'd catch him he would greet me with enthusiasm and try to sit on my lap on the way home.

Then I found a beautiful place for him to run--a weedy strip bounded by a fence on one side and a deep canal on the other. As a steadying influence I put him down with Tex, my conventionally paced and controllable old Brittany. That was at five p.m. on a cooling Florida evening in spring. At three a.m. the next morning I was awakened by Danny's bell. I had been sleeping in the station wagon and he was coming down a moonlit sand trail, accompanied by Tex. Tex eyed me with apprehension, but Danny treated the event as a routine workout.

That ended Danny's Florida exercise, as we were heading out West soon and I figured a few thousand acres of sagebrush would fit Danny's lifestyle because he'd soon have to realize we were all in this bird-hunting business together. When I first turned him loose in the sage I observed with pride how he quartered ahead of me, and I was not really apprehensive until I saw him through my binoculars, topping out a mile away on a grassy ridge.

Half an hour later he was coming straight back toward me and I was sure he'd had his little wind sprint and was ready to settle down; but while I blasted on the whistle and screamed promises of raw steak and a new doghouse he passed me full bore at a distance of 20 yards without turning his head and did a couple of miles in the opposite direction. This recurred on several occasions and at the end of approximately three hours he would come to the truck--not to me, the truck. I couldn't catch him 20 feet from it, but when we both got in we were buddies again. The rendezvous had to be in the truck.

It was the second time out that we got into the coyote bit. As Danny dipped over the third ridge I heard the yaps of a coyote, and then another, and I wondered what was going on.

"Watch it!" a local rancher said. "Coyotes sometimes kill our young stock dogs."

The next time out I had an athletic young friend with me and when the coyote chorus started he ran off in that direction. Not to worry, he reported. The coyotes chased Danny but Danny paid no attention to them and after a quarter mile the tired wolves just sat down and barked at him.

I tried a change of territory and released Danny in the foothills, headed uphill, figuring gravity might bring him back. An hour later I climbed a knob and with binoculars sighted him in a canyon. He was playing tag with a black bear, but he came in shortly after that.

IT WAS ABOUT THAT TIME we began to discuss the electric collar. Bird season was coming and Danny and I had no agreement yet. I'd heard about electric collars for a long time and the last word was that Murphy's attention had finally been gained with one. I understand that part of our energy shortage is due to the juice needed to light him up.

Some of my information on electric collars was pretty old, and I knew they had been improved. Trainers called them everything from the hand of God to instruments of torture. But very brief shocks might be the answer for Danny. Or would Danny just speed up?

One of my informants told me he had used an electric collar to break his pointer of chasing rabbits. When the pointer would refuse to stop a chase he would get a little jolt of electricity.

"I broke him of chasing rabbits," the man said, "but it is kind of embarrassing. Now whenever my dog sees a rabbit he rolls over on his back and howls."

It was along here that Charley came into the picture. Charley is a pint-sized Brittany owned by Jack Ward and we may as well face it--Charley is a cow chaser. Charley was named after me and at first I was flattered.

Jack and I wondered how an electric collar would affect Charley's impromptu herding instincts. One collar could be used with both Danny and Charley, we reasoned. The real decision came when Charley added a new wrinkle to his cow chasing. On that day he would chase a cow for a few yards and then run back to us at top speed and tear around and around us just out of reach, barking loudly, while we said things like, "You shouldn't do that, Charley!"

Jack and I got one of the collars. For crude, old-fashioned dog owners who have never seen an electric collar, I shall explain. There is a collar you put on the dog and it has a couple of contact points that push against his neck. You carry a little gadget with a collapsible aerial in a holster on your belt. When you push the red button it stings a dog out to almost half a mile. Since Danny did half a mile rather quickly, I practiced a fast draw.

"I am not going to bust my dog with this thing until I know how strong it is," Jack announced firmly. "We've gotta test it."

I asked him how and he thought a minute, then said to leave that to him. The next day he told me that he had made the test and the collar was fine. It had considerable shock, he said, but was not going to knock Charley into a coma. In the interest of science I inquired.

"I had George over last night to show him the collar," Jack said, "and when he had hold of it just right, I hit the button. Well, George jumped out of his chair and I think his hair sort of stood up. You know, perhaps we shouldn't mention to him that it was not an accident."

Anyhow, after a couple of jolts Charley pretended not to notice cattle, although you could see him watching them out of the corner of his eye, obviously looking for their concealed weapons.

WE TOOK DANNY TO A FRESHLY DISKED FIELD that seemed to extend clear off the earth's surface. This was in Montana where the ranchers don't like to turn their tractors too much. I tested the collar with the little light-up gadget before I put it on and while it was being installed Danny maintained his usual appearance of friendly nonchalance.

I turned him loose and he started across the field, little spurts of dust behind him and a long way apart. I yelled "Whoa!" twice. Although this would stop Danny in his tracks in the back yard, it was only a formality in the field. I also blew the whistle.

Then I pushed the button and there was a cloud of dust where Danny had been. The dust exuded a couple of yips and Danny came out of it headed for protection. Since I was standing up he could not jump on my lap, but he gave evidence of wishing to communicate.

The truck was only a few yards away and just as I told him to load up, Danny decided he must have been mistaken the first time so he smoked off in another direction. I yelled and blew the whistle and then touched the button and Danny homed in on me, then looked back toward where he'd come from. There was, he seemed to feel, something out there.

Not wanting to keep Danny wired for the rest of his life, I put a bell on his electric collar so he would associate that with the unpleasantness that happened when he went too far. Then, with a little use of a dummy electric collar, also carrying a bell, I figured I'd have it made. There was one complication.

When Danny was out of sight I didn't dare touch the button for fear he might be on point or even heading in, and after bird season opened I did considerable sprinting for high vantage points. Most of our hunting was for Hungarian partridge in a single area, as I thought familiarity with the terrain might help me find him in an emergency. The emergencies occurred regularly.

THE COUNTRY IS A SERIES OF RAVINES leading up to Sheep Mountain which bulges out of the high grass country. The coulees are grassy, with clumps of cottonwood and occasional aspens, and the Huns have been there every year.

Resting Huns are generally along the edges of the draws where the cover is not too thick, sometime in their standard coveys of a dozen or so birds, sometimes scattered in two's and three's, and occasionally bunched up in larger groups. When a dog points one of the big bunches and I walk them up, they're likely to divide up with each of the original coveys heading toward its home territory. About half the time the Huns get up wild anyway--the adult Hun not being noted as a good dog-training subject, generally standing in grass thin enough that he can observe a dog's progress, his apprehension building while he discusses the situation with his buddies.

Coveys are apt to be a considerable distance apart and I would not say such hunting is conducive to reducing Danny's range, but since I didn't have any pen-raised quail I had to go with the Huns, or rather somewhat behind them.

On the muzzleloader day I had started out fairly early, in the futile hope of tiring Danny a little. He was wearing his electric collar and his bell jangled busily through the little brush patches but we didn't find any birds for a while and that was my undoing.

I'd heard some thumping noises a long way off toward the mountain and when I found a pair of specks and put my binoculars on them it developed there were a couple of muzzleloader Hun hunters over there, doing considerable shooting, each shot marked by a white bloom of smoke. It was a little later that Danny and his tinkle disappeared. The whistle did no good, so after a couple of hours I headed to where I thought I might intercept the lads with the charcoal burners.

They hadn't seen any dog, they said, but they looked at each other, appearing a little relieved. Did my dog have a bell, they wanted to know. It seems they had been hearing a mysterious tinkling in the draws all around them but had never sighted anything. I assured them that the muzzleloaders hadn't started their heads ringing. By that time, however, the tinkling had ceased and at dark I went back to town to get the camping equipment I use when Danny makes one of his wider casts. My wife wasn't home and as I went into the darkened house I decided my six months of Danny had been enough. I was tired, and through the back of my groggy brain ran the faint tinkle of Danny's bell. I shook my head violently and it stopped.

I got the sleeping bag, wrote a note, and grabbed a couple of cans of Vienna sausage and a box of crackers and headed for the door, disturbed when I seemed again to hear a shred of ghostly tinkle. I shook my head and it did not stop. This I considered a bad sign.

The phone rang and I dropped the box of crackers in reaching for it.

"Did you find your dog?" came a solicitous voice. "This is one of the guys with the muzzleloaders."

"Nope," I said. "I'm going out there again now."

"Try your kennel," the man said. "We put him in there."

Danny was there, all right, his bell notes carrying faintly to the house. He'd finally checked in with the strangers, evidently assuming that anyone he chose would bring him home. The next time he got lost I sat down on a hill at dusk and fired three dollars worth of shotgun shells into the air. Danny's spirit-like white form finally materialized from a deep arroyo.

"If I ever kill a bird over that clown, I'll buy him a steak!" I promised Debie, mentally adding up the initial cost, the dog food, vet bills, some kennel fees, and the $300 electric collar.

I TOOK DANNY OUT TO THE WHEATFIELDS when the mountain shadows were stretching and the winding wet-weather creeks that cut through the big fields looked like jagged black slashes in the yellow stubble. At evening the Huns drift out into the fields to feed, and in a field I can see Danny.

Danny sprinted along one of the draws, showing mild interest in a jackrabbit while I fingered the button but never pushed it. He checked the other side of the ditch and then seemed magnetized toward the open field. He went with his head high and his tail went up, too. Then he stopped suddenly, cat-walked 15 feet and did the whole number, head high, white tail like a plume and the intent look in his eye that would have pleased his folks.

I stumbled up a little to one side so he could see me and was even with his nose when the Huns twittered up, a little far out but within range, and they swung hard right, followed by the gun muzzle, which it seemed would never catch up. One bird and let the others go, I told myself, just as if I habitually make doubles. Bang!

The bird came down hard, a pair of feathers hanging in the air, and Danny ran a little way and watched the others out of sight. Then he found the dead one and ran around aimlessly with it. That, of course, I told myself, was a retrieve.

I was a little surprised somehow to find it was just like any other Hun. I would not have been surprised if it had carried a silver plate with Danny's registration number on it. It had been a long, hard way and I suppose I should have announced to the world that I had a setter that would do it all.

But I have viewed these miraculous things before. That was last year. This season he may have retired from bird hunting entirely.