young Robin sighed and thought it seemed
very dreadful; but the next moment he was watching a streak of
blue, which was a kingfisher with a tiny silver fish in its beak,
and thinking he was beginning to feel hungry himself.

So he left the side of the pool with another sigh, the noise he
made sending off the great gray heron, and after a little
difficulty he found his way back to the outlaws' camp and his own
dinner, which, oddly enough, was not roast buck or fawn, but roast
ducks and a fine baked pike, cooked in an earthen oven, with plenty
of stuffing.

Then, being hungry, young Robin partook of his own meal, and forgot
all about what he had seen.

CHAPTER VI

It was all very wonderful to young Robin when he saw Little John or
one of the other men let fly an arrow with a twang of the
bow-string and a sharp whizz of the wings through the air, to
quiver in a mark eighty or a hundred yards away, or to pierce some
flying wild goose or duck passing in a flock high in air; but by
degrees that which had seemed so marvellous soon ceased to astonish
him, and at last looked quite easy.

For Robin was delighted with his bow and arrows as soon as he found
that he could send one of the light-winged shafts whistling in a
beautiful curve to stick in some big tree.

Then he began shooting at smaller trees, and then at saplings when
he could hit the small trees. But the saplings were, of course,
much more difficult. One day though, he went back to Little John
in triumph to tell him that he had shot at a young oak about as
thick as his wrist.

"But you didn't hit it?" said the big fellow, smiling.

"I just scratched one side of it though," cried the boy.

"Did you now? Well done! You keep on trying, and you'll beat me
some day."

"I don't think I shall," said Robin, shaking his head thoughtfully.

"Oh! but you will if you keep on trying. A lad who tries hard can
do nearly anything."

"Can he?" said Robin.

"To be sure he can; so you try, and when you can hit anything you
shoot at you'll be half a man. And when you've done growing you'll
be one quite."

"Shall I ever be as big as you?" asked Robin.

"I hope not," said Little John, laughing. "I'm too big."

"Are you?" said Robin. "I should like to be as big as you."

"No, no, don't," cried Little John. "You go on growing till you're
a six-footer, and then you stop. All that grows after that's waste
o' good stuff, and gets in your way. Big uns like