•ffn tbe Moo5s witb tbe Bow 



enlighten him by a practical, not to say- 

 spectacular, demonstration. He was a 

 man fashioned with a stoop of the shoulders 

 and a lank body, topped off with a narrow, 

 sandy head, which wore reddish throat- 

 whiskers set on like a thin rufHe or ruche 

 under the chin and jaws. When his little 

 mules came to a ford in a small stream and 

 were afraid to enter, he fell into a rage, 

 stormed at them, belaboring them with a 

 gad. The great noise he made startled a 

 bird from a sand-bar to the left of us, and 

 it flew a little way up the brook, where it 

 dropped down again at the edge of a pool 

 behind some stones. 



At the first glimpse I knew it was not 

 a bird usually found in the mountains, and 

 I was so eager to secure it that, with a 

 single compound motion, I slipped three 

 arrows from my bag, flung myself over 

 the sideboard to the ground, and braced 

 my bow. Mr. Shamly was too busy bast- 

 ing his hydrophobic mules — lashing them 

 with his tongue and slashing their backs 

 with the gad — to observe my movement; 

 and when at last the team plunged into 



211 



