ut
sufficient to enable us to see abroad over the flat landscape.

Immediately beyond Tommy was a long, low irrigation check grown with
soft green sod. On the farther slope thereof were the girls. They had
brought magazines and fancy work, and evidently intended to spend the
afternoon in the open, enjoying the fresh air and the glad sunshine and
the cheerful voices of God's creatures. They were, of course, quite
unconscious of Tommy's sporting venture not a hundred feet away. Their
parasols were green, red, blue, and other explosive tints.

Uncle Jim and I sat for a few moments on the top of that fence enjoying
the view. Then we climbed softly down and went away. We decided tacitly
not to shoot ducks. The nature of the expedition immediately changed. We
spent the rest of the afternoon on quail. To be sure number-five shot in
a close-choked twelve is not an ideal load for the purpose; but by care
in letting our birds get far enough away we managed to have a very good
afternoon's sport. And whenever we would make a bad miss we had ready
consolation: the thought of Tommy waiting and wondering and puzzling in
his blind.

CHAPTER XII

THE GRAND TOUR

Almost always our sporting expeditions were of this casual character,
sandwiched in among other occupations. Guns were handy, as was the game.
To seize the one and pursue the other on the whim of the moment was the
normal and usual thing. Thus one day Mrs. Kitty drove me over to look at
a horse I was thinking of buying. On the way home, in a corner of brush,
I hopped out and bagged twelve quail; and a little farther on, by a
lucky sneak, I managed to gather in five ducks from an irrigation pond.
On another occasion, having a spare hour before lunch, I started out
afoot from the ranch house at five minutes past eleven, found my quail
within a quarter mile, had luck in scattering them, secured my limit of
twenty-five, and was back at the house at twelve twenty-five! Before
this I had been to drive with Mrs. Kitty; and after lunch we drove
twelve miles to call on a neighbour. Although I had enjoyed a full day's
quail shoot, it had been, as it were, merely an interpolation.

Occasionally, however, it was elected to make a grand and formal raid on
the game. This could be either a get-up-early-in-the-morning session in
the blinds, a formal quail hunt, or the Grand Tour.

To take the Grand Tour we got out the Liver Invigorator and as many
saddle horses as might be neede