272 THE GUN: AFIELD AND AFLOAT 



air, and it became necessary to carefully single out a bird, 

 which also fell headlong to the mud. As it was hardly 

 likely that the whole of this lot would prove to be dead, 

 I quickly sallied forth to pick them up ; and well it was 

 that I did so, for one winged bird led me a dance over 

 the mud, and would undoubtedly have got clear away 

 but for the fact that he got into a reed-bed, where I was 

 able to quickly overtake him. Seizing him by the neck, 

 I turned to retrace my steps, but found the light still so 

 bad that I could not discover my former hiding-place, so, 

 perforce, had to wait until the moon shone half-an-hour 

 later. Then I recovered my bearings and sought dili- 

 gently for my birds ; but the eighth defied all efforts for 

 a long time, until at last it was found quite dead in a thick 

 bunch of reeds into which it had fallen head first. This 

 bird was not very far from where I had been kneeling, 

 so I concluded that it must have been one of the first to 

 have been killed. 



Thereafter for fully half-an-hour nothing stirred, and 

 I was thinking of giving it up for that night when I heard 

 in the distance the " plop," " plop " of approaching foot- 

 steps over the watery ooze, and I knew that my kind- 

 hearted friend the old gunner was coming to lend me a 

 helping hand. On joining me he said that, hearing the 

 firing, he thought I might want a little help with the birds. 

 The moon was well up as we proceeded to the punts, 

 and as we plodded painfully along in our heavy water- 

 boots there came to us the cry of a goose from over the 

 water. As it came nearer and nearer we crouched down 

 in a little rill. My luck had not deserted me, for the 

 goose came right over us, and although a good height up, 

 the shot cut him down beautifully, and as he turned over 

 and fell on his back my companion exclaimed, "Well, 



