t isn't a bit
like shooting at clay targets. The twittering whirr takes me by
surprise--it's all so charmingly sudden--and my heart seems to stop in
one beat, and I look and look and then--whisk! the woodcock is gone,
leaving me breathless--"

Her voice ceased; the white setter, cutting up his ground ahead, had
stopped, rigid, one leg raised, jaws quivering and locking alternately.

"Isn't that a stunning picture!" said Siward in a low voice. "What a
beauty he is--like a statue in white and blue-veined marble. You may
talk, Miss Landis; woodcock don't flush at the sound of the human voice
as grouse do."

"See his brown eyes roll back at us! He wonders why we don't do
something!" whispered the girl. "Look, Mr. Siward! Now his head is
moving--oh so gradually to the left!"

"The bird is moving on the ground," nodded Siward; "now the bird has
stopped."

"I do wish I could see a woodcock on the ground," she breathed. "Do you
think we might by any chance?"

Siward noiselessly sank to his knees and crouched, keen eyes minutely
busy among the shadowy browns and greys of wet earth and withered leaf.
And after a while, cautiously, he signalled the girl to kneel beside
him, and stretched out one arm, forefinger extended.

"Sight straight along my arm," he said, "as though it were a rifle
barrel."

Her soft cheek rested against his shoulder; a stray strand of shining
hair brushing his face.

"Under that bunch of fern," he whispered; "just the colour of the dead
leaves. Do you see? ... Don't you see that big woodcock squatted flat,
bill pointed straight out and resting on the leaves?"

After a long while she saw, suddenly, and an exquisite little shock
tightened her fingers on Siward's extended arm.

"Oh, the feathered miracle!" she whispered; "the wonder of its
cleverness to hide like that! You look and look and stare, seeing it all
the while and not knowing that you see it. Then in a flash it is there,
motionless, a brown-shaped shadow among shadows. ... The dear little
thing! ... Mr. Siward, do you think--are you going to--"

"No, I won't shoot it."

"Thank you. ... Might I sit here a moment to watch it?"

She seated herself soundlessly among the dead leaves; he sank into place
beside her, laying his gun aside.

"Rather rough on the dog," he said with a grimace.

"I know. It is very good of you, Mr. Siward to do this for my pleasure.
Oh--h! Do you see! Oh, the little beauty!"

The woodcock had risen, plumag