WHEN TO STOP? 115 



range, he was only about 50 yards away from 

 Harry, who drew a bead on him, and down 

 came Number 4 in the flock, righting every 

 inch of the way to keep up ; but his body was 

 too heavy for him. His second barrel knocked 

 out the old "houker" completely, and he 

 struck the ground with a thud. We found 

 afterwards a double " B " had gone up through 

 his brain and another into his gizzard. 



This, we expected, would bring the battle 

 to an end, for the sun was coming up ; but we 

 had noticed that all the birds we had yet seen 

 were grey geese, while in the flight the after- 

 noon before were several flocks of wavies, so 

 we were encouraged to think there were still 

 more in reserve for us. Eight now I seem to 

 hear some of my over-scrupulous readers say, 

 " Those chaps weren't sportsmen; they were 

 slaughterers. Such shooting as that wasn't 

 sport nothing but slaughter ! " Well, I once 

 heard a crank talk in that strain, who was 

 with me afterwards plover-shooting, and when 

 we had bagged nearly a hundred, I suggested 

 we ought to stop, as we had enough, but his 

 " crankship " had not had enough. The 

 sport was too keen and exciting. While he 



