. Then the shooters were placed in a line, some forty or fifty
yards apart, each taking his station behind a tree. Then a small bugler
sounded a note. Godfrey heard a reply a long distance off.
Three-quarters of an hour passed without any further sound being heard,
and then Godfrey, who had been stamping his feet and swinging his arms
to keep himself warm, heard a confused murmur. Looking along the line he
saw that the others were all on the alert, and he accordingly took up
his gun and began to gaze across the snow. The right-hand barrel was
loaded with shot, the left with ball. Presently a shot rang out away on
his right, followed almost immediately afterwards by another. After
this evidence that there must be something in the forest he watched more
eagerly for signs of life. Presently he saw a hare coming loping along.
From time to time it stopped and turned its head to listen, and then
came on again. He soon saw that it was bearing to the left, and that it
was not going to come within his range. He watched it disappear among
the trees, and two minutes later heard a shot. Others followed to the
right and left of him, and presently a hare, which he had not noticed,
dashed past at full speed, almost touching his legs. He was so startled
for the moment that the hare had got some distance before he had turned
round and was ready to fire, and he was in no way surprised to see it
dash on unharmed by his shot. When there was a pause in the firing the
shouting recommenced, this time not far distant, and he soon saw men
making their way towards him through the trees.

"It is all over now," Mr. Robson shouted from the next tree. "If they
have not done better elsewhere than we have here the bag is not a very
large one."

"Did you shoot anything, Mr. Robson?"

"I knocked a hare over; that is the only thing I have seen. What have
you done?"

"I think I succeeded in frightening a hare, but that was all," Godfrey
laughed. "It ran almost between my legs before I saw it, and I think it
startled me quite as much as my shot alarmed it."

The bugle sounded again, and the party were presently collected round
the colonel. The result of the beat was five hares, and a small stag
that had fallen to the gun of Mr. White.

"Much cry and little wool," Mr. Robson said. "A hundred beaters, twenty
guns, and six head of game."

Another short beat was organized, resulting in two stags and three more
hares. One of the stags and the three hare