CHAPTER XVI. 



SKY-SCRAPING PHEASANTS. 



WE began the next morning's activities by a most engaging pas- 

 sage at arms with some A. -No. 1 top-lofty pheasants. The line 

 of guns was extended upon a rolling hillside with a clear view 

 to another wood-crowned hill distant about half a mile. It was this 

 wood the beaters entered first and from it came grand high birds that 

 fell like Lucifer when they were hit. 



Everything was plain and open. You could see the bird break from 

 cover, sometimes with excited clucking noises; then you could clearly 

 observe him drawing rapidly near. The question whether the shot 

 would be yours or that of a man somewhere along the line was next 

 to be decided. If the bird came nearer to you than anyone else you 

 "Up Gun, And At Him," when he was within range. 



The partridge shooting was not so good this day as the one before, 

 largely because the driving was not so well done, different game 

 keepers were in charge, but it was a fine day's sport and I had one 

 encounter in the afternoon after our luncheon taken in the root shed 

 of another farm which was as tidy a tight little corner as anybody 

 ever saw. 



A slim wood, tall and narrow, half a mile long and forty yards wide, 

 ran along a gentle slope downward to plowed ground. The plowed 

 ground continued in slope; seventy-five yards from the lower and 

 wider corner of this wood was another larger wood. 



The good-natured dispenser of shooting stations put me in the angle 

 between these two woods. Nothing which came out came my way 

 until the very last part of the beat, when in a few minutes oh, say 

 about two minutes, very full ones altogether the air seemed full of 

 pheasants. 



I rattled my two automatics for all they were worth and was glad 

 when I got through with it to realize that I had done better shooting 



