to the other--they've got game, and no mistake!"

"Skeap--ske-eap!" up sprang a couple of English snipe before Shot's
nose, and Harry cut them down, a splendid double shot, before they had
flown twenty yards, just as Frank dropped the one which rose to him at
the same moment. At the sound of the guns a dozen more rose hard by, and
fluttering on in rapid zig-zags, dropped once again within a hundred
yards--the meadow was alive with them.

"Did you ever see snipe here before, Tom? asked Harry, as he loaded.

"Never in all my life--but it's full now--load up! load up! for heaven's
sake!"

"No hurry, Tom! Tom--steady! the birds are tame and lie like stones. We
can get thirty or forty here, I know, if you'll be steady only--but if
we go in with these four dogs, we shall lose all. Here comes Tim with
the couples, and we'll take up all but two!"

"That's right," said A---; "take up Grouse and Tom's dog, for they won't
hunt with yours--and yours are the steadiest, and fetch--that's it, Tim,
couple them, and carry them away. What have you killed, Archer?" he
added, while his injunctions were complied with.

"One woodcock and a brace of ruffed grouse! and Frank has marked down
three-and-twenty quail into that rushy bottom yonder, where we can get
every bird of them. We are going to have great sport to-day!"

"I think so. Tom and I each killed a double shot out of that bevy!"

"That was well! Now, then, walk slowly and far apart--we must beat this
three or four times, at least--the dogs will get them up!"

It was not a moment before the first bird rose, but it was quite two
hours, and all the dinner horns had long blown for noon, before the last
was bagged--the four guns having scored, in that one meadow, forty-nine
English snipe--fifteen for Harry Archer--thirteen for Tom Draw--twelve
for the Commodore, and only nine for Forester, who never killed snipe
quite so well as he did cock or quail.

"And now, boys," exclaimed Tom, as he flung his huge carcase on the
ground, with a thud that shook it many a rod around--"there's a cold
roast fowl, and some nice salt pork and crackers, in that 'ar game bag--
and I'm a whale now, I tell you, for a drink!"

"Which will you take to drink, Tom?" inquired Forester, very gravely--
"fowl, pork, or crackers? Here they are, all of them! I prefer whiskey
and water, myself!" qualifying, as he spoke, a moderate cup with some of
the ice-cold water which welled out in a crystal stream from a