t, an old
deserted pasture, and Frank began to grumble, but just then a pair of
bars gave access to a wide fifty acre lot, which had been wheat, the
stubble standing still knee deep, and yielding a rare covert.

"Now we are at the far end of our beat, and we have got the wind too in
the dogs' noses, Master Frank--and so hold up good lads," said Harry.
And off the setters shot like lightning, crossing and quartering their
ground superbly.

"There! there! well done, old Chase--a dead stiff point already, and
Shot backing him as steady as a rail. Step up, Frank, step up quietly,
and let us keep the hill of them."

They came up close, quite close to the stanch dog, and then, but not
till then, he feathered and drew on, and Shot came crawling up till his
nose was but a few inches in the rear of Chase's, whose point he never
thought of taking from him. Now they are both upon the game. See how
they frown and slaver, the birds are close below their noses.

Whirr--r--r! "There they go--a glorious bevy!" exclaimed Harry, as he
cocked his right barrel and cut down the old cock bird, which had risen
rather to his right hand, with his loose charge--"blaze away, Frank!"
Bang--bang!--and two more birds came fluttering down, and then he
pitched his gun up to his eye again, and sent the cartridge after the
now distant bevy, and to Frank's admiration a fourth bird was keeled
over most beautifully, and clean killed, while crossing to the right, at
forty-six yards, as they paced it afterward.

"Now mark! mark, Timothy--mark, Frank!" And shading their eyes from the
level sunbeams, the three stood gazing steadily after the rapid bevy.
They cross the pasture, skim very low over the brush fence of the
cornfield--they disappear behind it they are down! no! no! not yet--they
are just skirting the summit of the topped maize stalks--now they are
down indeed, just by that old ruined hovel, where the cat-briers and
sumac have overspread its cellar and foundation with thick underwood.
And all the while the sturdy dogs are crouching at their feet unmoving.

"Will you not follow those, Harry?" Forester inquired--"there are at
least sixteen of them!"

"Not I," said Archer, "not I, indeed, till I have beat this field--I
expect to put up another bevy among those little crags there in the
corner, where the red cedars grow--and if we do, they will strike down
the fence of the buckwheat stubble--that stubble we must make good, and
the rye beside it,