222 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 



velocity to be acquired is very great. After practicing 

 a while, so he feels he can do it with rapidity, let his 

 wife try it, and her first attempt wiU convince him how 

 exceedingly slow he is. As the hunter sees them flying 

 over him, a variety of conflicting emotions flit through 

 his mind. He believes patience is a monument of 

 virtue, and is patient. He weakens as time passes, and 

 not one comes near enough to kill ; still they go over 

 him, chattering and whistling, or turn their heads 

 slightly and look down on him, as he feels, in derision. 

 Getting desperate he begins shooting at them ; shot 

 after shot is iired, but without effect. He gets mad, 

 and wishes he had a gun that would kill a mile — no dif- 

 ference what it, weighed. But his desperation and 

 disgust nerve him to greater deeds of valor, and by 

 shooting from 16 to 20 feet ahead of a flock, he scratches 

 one down, wing tipped. No sooner does the bird start 

 to leave the flock, than the hunter starts for it like a 

 race-horse. When he gets where the bird fell, he finds 

 feathers but no bird. About this time the air becomes 

 blue, and a heavy sulphuric vapor permeates the sur- 

 roundings. He is out of breath from running. Accident- 

 ally looking back, he sees a large flock of pin-tails swoop 

 right over his blindj not fifty feet high, the best op- 

 portunity of the day. He feels he could have killed 

 half a dozen had he been there. Such luck ! How he 

 wishes he had not chased this crawling cripple. He 

 sees the grass move slightly, pounces down upon it, 

 and drags out the lost bird; clutches it around the 

 neck, gives it a preliminary squeeze, while the poor 

 bird makes a choking quack, then gazes at him in as- 

 tonishment and affright. The hunter feels the impos- 

 sibility of wreaking all his pent up revenge on this lone 



