THE DUCKS AT LAST. 109 



Now these rabbits, of course, normally, live in holes or burrows in the 

 ground for the greater part. Campbell offered them a nice lunch of 

 that particular kind of food of which they were most fond, late in 

 the evening, and then when the bunnies were out feeding, he had a force 

 of men stop all the burrows. To begin with he had put a rabbit-tight 

 fence around the warren, and built piles of brush, one or two feet high, 

 perhaps four feet square, at intervals of ten or fifteen feet all over the 

 tract. This was a woods-grown enclosure; high trees and many of 

 them. 



When it came to the shooting the guns were distributed about 

 twenty-five yards apart with three or four beaters between each one, 

 and, of course, a loader for every gun was behind his principal. Then 

 at a signal, the beaters moving on a line with all, lifted up the little 

 heaps of brush with their sticks. 



The conventional result under such circumstances was the popping 

 out of one, two, three or perhaps four rabbits and the quick departure 

 of the little brown fellows for what they fondly imagined was a place 

 of safety in front. Then the guns commenced to talk. 



The line moved forward slowly and the rabbits kept getting up. It 

 really did seem impossible that ten guns could fire as rapidly as these 

 did. I know my two automatics got hot, and it is a hard thing to get 

 an automatic well warmed up. 



Before the line got clear through to the other end of the wood it 

 stopped and faced about. All the rabbits which had gone on were 

 then in its rear. The beaters slipped off to one side and came in from 

 behind. The result was that we had rabbits running from behind us 

 to our new front, and by the time they got to the danger zone they were 

 usually in full career. 



When a charge of shot struck one of the little speeding fellows he 

 would go end over end before coming to a stop. I'm not ashamed to 

 tell it, but the Scotchmen beat me all to pieces shooting rabbits. They 

 rarely ever missed. I found it easy enough to shoot at the wrong time 

 or place. 



When the rabbit fire was over we strung out of the wood and lined 

 up, beaters and guns, to cross some rough ground toward what I was 

 told would be the lake position for shooting ducks. As we went a 



