acky could see that terrible gun
plainly now. Suddenly an idea popped into his head. "Perhaps he is going
to shoot that hunter!" thought Blacky, and somehow he felt better.

Farmer Brown's boy reached the Big River at a point some distance below
the blind built by the hunter. He laid his gun down on the bank and went
down to the edge of the water. The rushes grew very thick there, and
for a while Farmer Brown's boy was very busy among them. Blacky from
his high perch could watch him, and as he watched, he grew more and more
puzzled. It looked very much as if Farmer Brown's boy was building a
blind much like that of the hunter's. At last he carried an old log
down there, got his gun, and sat down just as the hunter had done in his
blind the afternoon before. He was quite hidden there, excepting from a
place high up like Blacky's perch.

"I--I--I do believe he is going to try to shoot those Ducks himself,"
gasped Blacky. "I wouldn't have believed it if any one had told me. No,
Sir, I wouldn't have believed it. I--I--can't believe it now. Farmer
Brown's boy hunting with a terrible gun! Yet I've got to believe my own
eyes."

A noise up river caught his attention. It was the noise of oars in a
boat. There was the hunter, rowing down the Big River. Just as he had
done the day before, he came ashore above his blind and walked down to
it.

"This is no place for me," muttered Blacky. "He'll remember that I
scared those Ducks yesterday, and as likely as not he'll try to shoot
me."

Blacky spread his black wings and hurriedly left the tree-top, heading
for another tree farther back on the Green Meadows where he would be
safe, but from which he could not see as well. There he sat until the
Black Shadows warned him that it was high time for him to be getting
back to the Green Forest.

He had to hurry, for it was later than usual, and he was afraid to be
out after dark. Just as he reached the Green Forest he heard a faint
"bang, bang" from over by the Big River, and he knew that it came from
the place where Farmer Brown's boy was hiding in the rushes.

"It is true," croaked Blacky. "Farmer Brown's boy has turned hunter."
It was such a dreadful shock to Blacky that it was a long time before he
could go to sleep.

CHAPTER XXVI: Why The Hunter Got No Ducks

The hunter who had come down the Big River in a boat and landed near
the place where Dusky the Black Duck and his flock had found nice yellow
corn scattered in the ru