ng;
and, marking them, I saw that they all alighted only a couple of hundred
yards off, upon a large spruce-tree.

"Hoping they would sit there until I could get another shot, I loaded,
as quickly as possible, and stepped forward. The course I took brought
me past the one I had killed, which I picked up, and thrust hastily into
my bag. Beyond this I had to pass over some logs that lay along the
ground, with level spaces between them. What was my surprise in getting
among these, to see two of the cocks down upon the grass, and fighting
so desperately that they took no notice of my approach! At first I threw
up my rifle, intending to fire, but seeing that the birds were within a
few feet of me, I thought they might let me lay hold of them, which
they, in fact, did; for the next moment I had 'grabbed' both of them,
and cooled their bellicose spirits by wringing their heads off.

"I now proceeded to the pack, that still kept the tree. When near
enough, I sheltered myself behind another tree; and taking aim at one, I
brought him tumbling to the ground. The others sat still. Of course, I
shot the one upon the lowest branch: I knew that, so long as I did this,
the others would sit until I might get the whole of them; but that if I
shot one of the upper ones, its fluttering down through the branches
would alarm the rest, and cause them to fly off. I loaded and fired, and
loaded and fired, until half-a-dozen of the birds lay around the root of
the tree.

"I believe I could have killed the whole pack, but it just then occurred
to me that I was wasting our precious ammunition, and that, considering
the value of powder and shot to us just now, the birds were hardly worth
a load a-piece; so I left off cracking at them. As I stepped forward to
gather what I had killed, the rest whirred away into the woods.

"On reaching the tree where they had perched, I was very much surprised
to find a raw-hide rope neatly coiled up, and hanging from one of the
lower branches. I knew that somebody must have placed it there, and I
looked round to see what "sign" there was besides. My eye fell upon the
cinders of an old fire near the foot of the tree; and I could tell that
some Indians had made their camp by it. It must have been a good while
ago, as the ashes were beaten into the ground by the rain, and,
moreover, some young plants were springing up through them. I concluded,
therefore, that whoever had camped there had hung the rope upon the
tr