of the tree, and
stamped about to get rid of the stiffness, and cold brought on by our
cramped position on the branch, "de fuss ting am breckfuss. I so
dreffle hungry."

"But we ate everything last night," I said.

"Neb mind; plenty duck in de ribber. You go shoot four lil duck, dat
two piece, while Pomp make fire to roace um."

"But how are we to get a light?"

"You see," he said, as he busily began to get together all the loose
sticks he could find lying about, at the same time showing me a stone
and his knife with a little bag full of tinder. "I soon get light,
Mass' George; I get big fire much soon you get de duck."

The proposition was so sensible that I went off with the gun, and
following the course of the river beyond the bluff, I was not long
before I heard a familiar noise, and creeping forward in the grey dawn,
I was soon crouching behind the low growth by a wide pool of the river,
where quite a flock of ducks were disporting themselves, preening their
feathers, diving, making the bright drops run over their backs like
pearls, and ending by flapping and beating the water heavily with their
wings, exactly as I had seen them perform in the pond at home.

I waited my opportunity, lying flat now on my chest, and at last, after
nearly firing three or four times and always waiting for a better
chance, I drew trigger upon a knot of the ducks after getting several
well in a line. There was a deafening report, a sensation as if my
shoulder was broken, and a thick film of smoke hid everything from my
sight. But as the shot went echoing along the side of the forest, I
could hear the whistling and whirring of wings where the ducks flapped
along the water, rose, and swept away over the trees. Then the smoke
rose, and to my great delight there lay five of the unfortunate ducks;
three perfectly still, and floating slowly to the shallow below the
pool, the other two flapping wildly and trying to reach the farther
shore.

To get the three was easy. I had but to wait and then wade in over the
shallow to where I could see the sandy and pebbly bottom quite plain.
To get the wounded ducks meant a swim, and perhaps a long hunt.

"Better shoot at them again," I thought, when I shuddered, for something
dark appeared behind one; there was a snap, and it disappeared, while
almost at the same moment the other, which must have been nearly twenty
yards away, was suddenly struck down beneath the water by something
which p