e work of
trying to shoot them began. Before beginning to fire, the boys had been
warned never under any circumstance to pull a trigger if one of the
other boats should be in line, no matter how distant. Bullets even from
an ordinary shotgun will sometimes so bound over the waves as to go an
immense distance, and very serious injuries have resulted. As has been
stated, it is almost impossible to kill a loon even when struck with
ordinary shot, so it was decided here to use either buckshot or bullets
as the hunters preferred.

Part of the fun of loon hunting is in the absolute uncertainty as to the
spot where the bird, after diving, will next show itself. It may appear
a quarter of a mile away, or it may suddenly push up its bright head and
look at you out of its brilliant eyes not five yards from the side of
your canoe. It has, when hunted, a certain dogged stubbornness against
leaving the vicinity it was in when first assailed, and will remain in a
small area, even of a large lake, although repeatedly fired at.

Hardly had the canoe in which were Mr Ross and Frank with their two
canoemen taken its position, when a beautiful loon rose up about a
hundred yards away, and not having been frightened, as no gun had as yet
been fired, he sat there in all his beauty on the water watching them.

"Fire at him," said Mr Ross to Frank.

No sooner said than done, and away sped the bullet well and true on its
errand, and fairly and squarely hit the water exactly where the bird had
been, but no bird was there. Quicker than could that bullet speed
across those hundred yards the bird had dived, and ere Frank could
recover from his chagrin its brilliant eyes were looking at him from a
spot not twenty yards away. The loon had been facing the canoe when
fired at, and in diving had come on in a straight line toward them, and
now here he was, so close to them and looking so intently that he seemed
to say by his appearance, "I've come to see what all that noise was
about."

So sudden was his appearance that no one in the canoe was ready for him,
and ere a gun could be pointed he was down again and, swimming directly
under the boat, rose again on the other side, more than a hundred yards
away. While this had been Frank's experience, the others had not been
idle. As was quite natural, there was a good deal of good-natured
rivalry among them, as to which canoe would come, the honour of killing
the first loon. Mustagan, who had ch