170 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



his little finger, still holding the cap between his forefinger and 

 thumb, and actually contrived to bring up the gun, some how 

 or other,* and to kill the bird, pulling the trigger with his 

 middle finger. 



At the report a third quail sprang, close under his feet ; and, 

 still unshaken, he capped the right hand barrel, fired, and the 

 bird towered ! 



" Mark ! mark ! Tom ma-ark Timothy P' shouted Harry and 

 A in a breath. 



" That bird is as dead as Hannibal now !" added Archer, as, 

 having spun up three hundred feet into the air, and flown twice 

 as many hundred yards, it turned over, and fell plumb, like a 

 stone, through the clear atmosphere. 



" Ayse gotten that chap marked doon roight, ayse warrant 

 un !" shouted Timothy from the hill side, where with some 

 trouble, he was holding in the obstreperous spaniels. " He's 

 doon in a roight laine atwixt 't muckle gray stean and yon 

 hoigh ashen tree.' 



" Did you ever see such admirable shooting, though ?" asked 



A , in a low voice. " I did not know Forester shot like 



that." 



" Sometimes he does. When he's cool. He is not certain ; 

 that is his only fault. One day he is the coolest man I ever 

 saw in a field, and the next the most impetuous ; but when he 



is cool, he shoots splendidly. As you say, A , I never saw 



anything better done in my life. It was the perfection of cool- 

 ness and quickness combined." 



" I cannot conceive how it was done at all. How he brought 

 up and fired that first barrel with a cap between his thumb and 

 forefinger ! Why, I could not fire a gun so, in cold blood !" 



"Nor could he, probably. Deliberate promptitude is the 

 thing ! Well, Tom, what do you think of that 1 Wasn't that 

 pretty shooting ?" 



" It was so, pretty shootin'," responded the fat man, quite de- 

 lighted out of his crusty mood. " I guess the darned little 

 critter's got three barrels to his gun somehow ; leastwise it 

 seems to me, I swon, 'at he fired her off three times without 

 loadin' ! I guess I'll quit tryin' to shoot agin Frank, to-day." 



" I told you so !" said Harry to the Commodore, with a low 



* If I had not seen the whole of this scene with my eyes, and had I 

 not witnesses of the fact, I would scarce dare to relate it. From the cut- 

 ting the first bird to atoms, all is strictly true. 



