SPOET IN THE COAST EANGE MOUNTAINS. 259 



schoolboy^ but somebow we botb of us, witb a little 

 management, contrived to sleep in it as sound as tops. 

 As I was tired of bacon at every meal, I strolled out with 

 my gun some little distance towards the beach, and 

 knocked over a brace and a half of quail, and three 

 ground squirrels. The quail, as I was in a hurry, I 

 simply secured by running and shouting as much as I 

 could, and driving them to tree, when I potted them 

 straight off. It sounds rather queer to English ears, but 

 hunger knows no law. While Ryles fixed up the place 

 tidy, I spatched the quails on a gridiron, which I had 

 taken the precaution to bring with me, and roasted a 

 squirrel, catching his fat on a piece of fresh -plucked 

 bark. We had one solitary loaf of soft bread left, which 

 I cut up into slices, and made anchovy toast of, and 

 we finished off with a can of preserved peaches. Now, I 

 ask you candidly, kind reader, could you have fared better 

 at the Blue Posts ? We lit our pipes, and walked leisurely 

 down to the beach about half a mile off. The quail 

 kept whirring all around us, and the squirrels, up on 

 their hind legs, looked at us curiously from the edge of 

 their holes, and at our nearer approach disappeared like 

 a cocktail down a loafer^s throat, as Ryles observed. 

 '^ Bear to your right ; I know a mere, about a few rods 

 off, where the ducks used to flight to last year, and I 

 suppose they do now ; if so, we^ll have a couple or two 

 of ^em to-morrow.^' It was too early for the flight yet, 

 so we strolled on to where a small streamlet ran into 

 the sea, and -esconced ourselves behind an old stand, 

 which Ryles had made two or three winters ago. We 

 laid down one at each end, and as we watched the 

 dying lines of the western sky fade o^er the rippling 

 waters, a thin dark line gradually approached, every 



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