114 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



not steadily, at every foot, till at the last all three, in different 

 places, stood almost simultaneously all three dead points. 



One bird jumped up to Frank, which he knocked over. A 

 double shot fell to the Commodore, who held the centre of the 

 line, and dropped both cleverly the second, a long shot, wing- 

 tipped only. Harry flushed three and killed two clean, both 

 within thirty paces, and then covered the third bird with his 

 empty barrels but, though no shot could follow from that 

 quarter, he was not to escape scot free, for wheeling short to the 

 left hand, and flying high, he crossed the Commodore in easy 

 distance, and afterward gave Forester a chance. 



44 Try him, Frank," halloaed Archer and "It's no .use!" 



cried A , almost together, just as he raised his gun, and 



levelled it a good two feet before the quail. 



But it was use, and Harry's practised eye had judged the 

 distance more correctly than the short sight of the Commodore 

 permitted the bird quailed instantly as the shot struck, but 

 flew on notwithstanding, slanting down wind, however, towards 

 the ground, and falling on the hill-side at a full hundred yards. 



" We shall not get him," Forester exclaimed ; 4: and I am 

 sorry for it, since it was a good shot." 



" A right good shot," responded Harry, "and we shall get 

 him. He fell quite dead ; I saw him bounce up, like a ball, when 



he struck the hard ground. But A 's second bird is only 



wing-tipped, and I don't think we shall get him ; for the ground 

 where he fell is very tussocky and full of grass, and if he creeps 

 in, as they mostly will do, into some hole in the bog-ground, it 

 is ten to one against the best dog in America !" 



And so it came to pass, for they did bag Forester's, and all 

 the other quail except the Commodore's, which, though the 

 dogs trailed him well, and worked like Trojans, they could not 

 for their lives make out. 



After this little rally they went down to the alders by the 

 stream-side, and had enough to do, till it was growing rapidly 

 too dark to shoot for the woodcock were very plentiful it 

 was sweet ground, too, not for feeding only, but for lying, and 

 that, as Harry pointed out, is a great thfng in the autumn. 



The grass was short and still rich under foot, although it 

 froze hard every night ; but all along the brook's marge there 

 were many small oozy bubbling springlets, which it required a 

 stinging night to congeal ; and round these the ground was 

 poached up by the cattle, and laid bare in spots of deep, soft, 



