e woods, gradually descending, led us into an
open plain where there was a grass-bordered pond full of ducks. Here
appeared an opportunity to get some meat. R.C. tried with shotgun and
I with rifle, all to no avail. These ducks were shy. Romer seemed to
evince some disdain at our failure, but he did not voice his feelings.
We found some wild-turkey tracks, and a few feathers, which put our
hopes high.

Crossing the open ground we again entered the forest, which gradually
grew thicker as we got down to a lower altitude. Oak trees began to
show in swales. And then we soon began to see squirrels, big, plump,
gray fellows, with bushy tails almost silver. They appeared wilder
than we would have suspected, at that distance from the settlements.
Romer was eager to hunt them, and with his usual persistence,
succeeded at length in persuading his uncle to do so.

To that end we rode out far ahead of the wagon and horses. Lee had a
yellow dog he called Pups, a close-haired, keen-faced, muscular canine
to which I had taken a dislike. To be fair to Pups, I had no reason
except that he barked all the time. Pups and his barking were destined
to make me hail them both with admiration and respect, but I had no
idea of that then. Now this dog of Lee's would run ahead of us,
trail squirrels, chase them, and tree them, whereupon he would bark
vociferously. Sometimes up in the bushy top we would fail to spy the
squirrel, but we had no doubt one was there. Romer wasted many and
many a cartridge of the .22 Winchester trying to hit a squirrel. He
had practiced a good deal, and was a fairly good shot for a youngster,
but hitting a little gray ball of fur high on a tree, or waving at the
tip of a branch, was no easy matter.

"Son," I said, "you don't take after your Dad."

And his uncle tried the lad's temper by teasing him about Wetzel. Now
Wetzel, the great Indian killer of frontier days, was Romer's favorite
hero.

"Gimme the .20 gauge," finally cried Romer, in desperation, with his
eyes flashing.

Whereupon his uncle handed him the shotgun, with a word of caution
as to the trigger. This particular squirrel was pretty high up,
presenting no easy target. Romer stood almost directly under it,
raised the gun nearly straight up, waved and wobbled and hesitated,
and finally fired. Down sailed the squirrel to hit with a plump. That
was Romer's first successful hunting experience. How proud he was of
that gray squirrel! I suffered a pang to