might require him again; so we
quartered him upon the squatter.

"On returning home, we found that our opponents had also made a `big
day's work of it;' but they were beaten by hundreds. The ladies were
ours!

"And we kept them until the end of the hunt, to the no little
mortification of the gentlemen in the `minority:' to their surprise, as
well; for most of them being crack-shots, and several of us not at all
so, they could not comprehend why they were every day beaten so
outrageously. We had hundreds to spare, and barrels of the birds were
cured for winter use.

"Another thing quite puzzled our opponents, as well as many good people
in the neighbourhood. That was the loud reports that had been heard in
the woods. Some argued they were thunder, while others declared they
must have proceeded from an earthquake. This last seemed the more
probable, as the events I am narrating occurred but a few years after
the great earthquake in the Mississippi Valley, and people's minds were
prepared for such a thing.

"I need not tell you how the knowing ones enjoyed the laugh for several
days, and it was not until the colonel's _reunion_ was about to break
up, that our secret was let out, to the no small chagrin of our
opponents, but to the infinite amusement of our host himself, who,
although one of the defeated party, often narrates to his friends the
story of the `Hunt with a Howitzer.'"

CHAPTER SIX.

KILLING A COUGAR.

Although we had made a five miles' march from the place where we had
halted to shoot the pigeons, our night-camp was still within the
boundaries of the flock. During the night we could hear them at
intervals at no great distance off. A branch occasionally cracked, and
then a fluttering of wings told of thousands dislodged or frightened by
its fall. Sometimes the fluttering commenced without any apparent
cause. No doubt the great-horned owl (_Strix virginiana_), the wild cat
(_felis rufa_), and the raccoon, were busy among them, and the silent
attacks of these were causing the repeated alarms.

Before going to rest, a torch-hunt was proposed by way of variety, but
no material for making good torches could be found, and the idea was
abandoned. Torches should be made of dry pine-knots, and carried in
some shallow vessel. The common frying-pan, with a long handle, is best
for the purpose. Link-torches, unless of the best pitch-pine (_Pinus
resinosa_), do not burn with sufficient brightness