ow to their cost."

"Yes, Cousin Hernan," said Marie, "you have been practising, but so,
perhaps, has Allan."

By this time all the company of Boers had collected round us, and began
to evince a great interest in the pending contest, as was natural among
people who rarely had a gun out of their hands, and thought that fine
shooting was the divinest of the arts. However, they were not allowed
to stay long, as the Kaffirs said that the geese would begin their
afternoon flight within about half an hour. So the spectators were all
requested to arrange themselves under the sheer cliff of the kloof,
where they could not be seen by the birds coming over them from behind,
and there to keep silence. Then Pereira and I--I attended by my loader,
but he alone, as he said a man at his elbow would bother him--and with
us Retief, the referee, took our stations about a hundred and fifty
yards from this face of cliff. Here we screened ourselves as well as
we could from the keen sight of the birds behind some tall bushes which
grew at this spot.

I seated myself on a camp-stool, which I had brought with me, for my
leg was still too weak to allow me to stand long, and waited. Presently
Pereira said through Retief that he had a favour to ask, namely, that
I would allow him to take the first six shots, as the strain of waiting
made him nervous. I answered, "Certainly," although I knew well that
the object of the request was that he believed that the outpost
geese--"spy-geese" we called them--which would be the first to arrive,
would probably come over low down and slow, whereas those that followed,
scenting danger, might fly high and fast. This, in fact, proved to be
the case, for there is no bird more clever than the misnamed goose.

When we had waited about a quarter of an hour Hans said:

"Hist! Goose comes."

As he spoke, though as yet I could not see the bird, I heard its cry of
"Honk, honk" and the swish of its strong wings.

Then it appeared, an old spur-winged gander, probably the king of the
flock, flying so low that it only cleared the cliff edge by about twenty
feet, and passed over not more than thirty yards up, an easy shot.
Pereira fired, and down it came rather slowly, falling a hundred yards
or so behind him, while Retief said:

"One for our side."

Pereira loaded again, and just as he had capped his rifle three more
geese, also flying low, came over, preceded by a number of ducks,
passing straight above us, as th