n to glitter with excitement. The wilderness
was her ally to-day. She suddenly saw her chance--in a manner that could
not possibly waken his suspicions of her intentions--of disposing of the
remainder of his pistol cartridges.

On a log thirty feet distant sat an old grouse with half a dozen of her
brood, all of them perched in a row and relying on their protective
coloring to save them from sight. They were Franklin's grouse--and they
had appeared as if in answer to Beatrice's secret wish.

These birds were common enough in their valley, and not a day passed
without seeing from five to fifty of them, yet the sight went straight
home to Beatrice's superstitions. "Get them with your pistol," she
whispered. "I want them all--for a big grouse pie to-night."

"But our pistol shells are getting low," Ben objected. "I've hardly got
enough shells in the gun to get 'em all--"

"No matter. You have to use them some time. There's a few more in the
cave, I think. We'll have to rely on big game from now on, anyway. Don't
miss one."

Ben drew his pistol, then walked up within twenty feet. He drew slowly
down, knocking the old bird from her perch with a bullet through the
neck.

"Good work," Beatrice exulted. "Now for the chicks."

Ben took the bird on the extreme right, and again the bullet sped true.
The remainder of the flock had become uneasy now; and at the next shot
all except one flew into the branches of the surrounding trees. This
shot was equally successful, and with the fourth he knocked the
remaining bird from the log.

Each of the four birds he had downed with a shot either through the head
or the neck; and such shooting would have been marvelous indeed in the
eyes of the tenderfoot. But both these two foresters knew that there was
nothing exceptional about it. Pistol shooting is simply a matter of a
sure eye and steady nerves, combined with a greater or less period of
practice. Few were the trappers or woodsmen north of fifty-three that
could not have done as much.

Ben turned his attention to the fowl on the lower tree limbs, hitting
once but missing the second time. To correct this unpardonable
proceeding, he knocked with his seventh a fat cock, his spurs just
starting, from almost the top of a young spruce.

"Here's one more," Beatrice urged him. "I'll need every one for the
pie."

But the gun was empty. The firing pin snapped harmlessly against the
breach. They gathered the grouse and sped on down to t