120 WITH GUN AND GUIDE 



its welcome light from the east before the birds com- 

 menced to stir. 



The sound of a slow flapping of some big bird struck 

 the ear, and as it came nearer it proved to be a large 

 full-grown blue heron, which, not noticing me, let his 

 legs drop from their horizontal position when in flight, 

 and coming down before the wind, settled within a 

 few feet of me. What an alert bird he was ! How he 

 turned his head this way and that way, seeing if all was 

 safe for him, before he commenced to look for his 

 breakfast. 



Watching him intently, I lay perfectly still. He 

 seemed to be sensible that his coast was not quite clear ; 

 whether through instinct or the power of scent which 

 this bird may possess, I do not know. But his eye 

 finally discovered my lair, and what a start he made 

 out of the supposed danger zone ! 



When I was a boy of thirteen, an uncle loaned me an 

 old single-barrel muzzle-loading shotgun. I went with 

 it on a Sunday-school picnic to a lake resort twenty-five 

 miles away. As soon as the picnic grounds were 

 reached, I was off with my precious gun to a stream 

 called Kettle Creek, three miles away, and in rounding 

 a curve in the stream I caught just a glimpse of a blue 

 heron's head peeking up from behind some bushes. 

 Aiming below his head, at where I supposed his body 

 to be, I was elated beyond belief at my rare good 

 fortune in seeing him fall to the ground, apparently dead. 



