at are
you about?"

The bird was quickly bagged, and Harry loaded. We stepped across a dry
ditch, and both dogs made game at the same instant.

"Follow the red dog, Frank!" cried Archer, "and go very slow; there are
birds here!"

And as he spoke, while the dogs were crawling along, cat-like, pointing
at every step, and then again creeping onward, up skirred two birds
under the very nose of the white setter, and crossed quite to the left
of Harry. I saw him raise his gun, but that was all; for at the
self-same moment one rose to me, and my ear caught the flap of yet
another to my right; five barrels were discharged so quickly, that they
made but three reports; I cut my bird well down, and looking quickly to
the left, saw nothing but a stream of feathers drifting along the wind.
At the same time, old Tom shouted on the right,

"I have killed two, by George! What have you done, boys?"

"Two, I!" said Archer. "Wait, Frank, don't you begin to load till one of
us is ready; there'll be another cock up, like enough. Keep your barrel;
I'll be ready in a jiffy!"

And well it was that I obeyed him, for at the squeak of the card, in its
descent down his barrel, another bird did rise, and was making off for
the open alders, when my whole charge riddled him; and instantly at the
report three more flapped up, and of course went off unharmed; but we
marked them, one by one, down in the grass at the wood edge. Harry
loaded again. We set off to pick up our dead birds. Shot drew, as I
thought, on my first, and pointed dead within a yard of where he fell. I
walked up carelessly, with my gun under my arm, and was actually
stooping to bag him, as I thought, when whiz! one rose almost in my
face; and, bothered by seeing us all around him, towered straight up
into the air. Taken completely by surprise, I blazed away in a hurry,
and missed clean; but not five yards did he go, before Tom cut him down.

"Aha, boy! whose eye's wiped now?"

"Mine, Tom, very fairly; but can that be the same cock I knocked down,
Archer?"

"Not a bit of it; I saw your's fall dead as a stone; he lies half a yard
farther in that tussock."

"How the deuce did you see him? Why, you were shooting your own at the
same moment."

"All knack, Frank; I marked both my own and yours, and one of Tom's
besides. Are you ready? Hold up, Shot! There; he has got your dead bird.
Was I not right? And look to! for, by Jove! he is standing on another,
with the dead bird in h