SHOOTING PARTRIDGES. 51 



our dinner. Upon gathering them up, and turning 

 towards the spot where I had left my guide, I saw him 

 with my rifle in his hand, walking around, and look- 

 ing into the branches of a half-grown hemlock, whis- 

 tling all the time most furiously. Presently I saw him 

 taking aim at some object in the tree. He fired, and 

 down tumbled a partridge. He fell to loading again, 

 all the time whistling most vociferously. Again he 

 fired, and again a partridge fell from among the 

 branches. 



" Halloa ! old fellow," said I, " that will do. Fish 

 and fowl will answer for a dinner for hungry men, 

 so leave the rest, if there's more of them there." A 

 fire was soon struck, and in half an hour we sat down 

 to a dinner which, with our appetites, an epicure 

 might well envy. 



" Look here, Tucker," said I, while stowing away 

 a leg of partridge, " tell me why you kept up such a 

 confounded whistling, while you were looking for 

 those birds in the tree." 



"It was to keep them from flyin' away," he re- 

 plied. " Off here in the woods, they ain't so shy as 

 they are down in the settlements ; and when they 

 take to a tree, so long as you keep up a sharp whis- 



