128 The Wild-Fowlers 



order that Doctor Bradley and Doctor 

 Corbin stared with amazement. 



The flock of broadbill, perhaps ten 

 birds in all, came nearer and nearer, and 

 from mere specks in the distance slowly 

 but gradually developed into larger ob- 

 jects, until, with rapid beatings of their 

 swift wings, they came so near that the 

 meanest eye might have made them out 

 wild fowl. One short turn would wheel 

 them forty yards from the trailers in the 

 decoy fleet, and ah, they wheel ! 

 " boom! " a leader collapses in midair; 

 "boom!" a second bird trails down 

 within seventy yards of the head-line of 

 the stool. Seth Fielding makes his first 

 kill a double, too from the battery, 

 and that with his first discharges. 



No need of waving the cap, thought 

 the shooter; every man aboard the sloop 

 must have seen the fowl tumble in the 

 air, for the Coot was not more than three 

 hundred yards away, and even so soon as 

 Seth glanced toward her after he had re- 



