bRANT SHOOTING. 2gi 



dropped in, and the others were over the tail part of 

 the decoys, when something alarmed them. It was 

 useless to stay down out of sight any longer, and I 

 seized the eight-gauge and aimed at a thick bunch of 

 birds to left hand. How they tumbled out ! Those No. 

 2 shot did great work; five shut up dead, and more 

 were coming, dropping until four more had fallen, 

 making nine, and another looked as if he were badly 

 hurt. J watched him to see whether he would drop 

 out further to the windward. 



The captain came rowing down like a steamboat, to 

 gather in the birds. He shot over the cripples and we 

 owned our nine brant. I stood up in the box to receive 

 the captain's congratulations and was staggered by his 

 question: "What was the matter; weren't they near 

 enough ?" 



"Near enough! Of course. Didn't you pick up 

 nine?" 



"Well, then, you must have had buck fever. Two 

 guns in the battery and only fired one shot at a crowd 

 of brant like that ! You're a great one for an old duck 

 shooter !" 



But no matter, we had no time to indulge in re- 

 grets, we felt that we must take advantage of the ebb 

 and get what birds we could. The captain had just 

 gotten nicely out of the way, when seven brant came 

 in from ofT shore, and four stopped in the lower part 

 of the decoys. 



Picking up my ten-gauge, I scored a clean miss on 

 the three flying birds with the first barrel, but managed 



