horn's leaked dry, I reckon!"

Tom forthwith handed him his own, and the next thing I heard was Blain
exclaiming that it was "desperate pretty powder," and wondered if it
shot strong.

"Shoot strong? I guess you'll find it strong enough to sew you up, if
you go charging your old musket that ways!" answered Tom. "By the Lord,
Archer, he's put in three full charges!"

"Well, it will kill him, that's all!" answered Harry, very coolly; "and
there'll be one less of you. But come! come! let's be bustling; the
sun's going to get up already. You'll leave your horses here, I suppose,
gentlemen, and get to the old stands. Tom Draw, put Mr. Forester at my
old post down by the big pin-oak at the creek side; and you stand there,
Frank, still as a church-mouse. It's ten to one, if some of those
fellows don't shoot him first, that he'll break covert close by you, and
run the meadows for a mile or two, up to the turnpike road, and over it
to Rocky hill--that black knob yonder, covered with pine and hemlock.
There are some queer snake fences in the flat, and a big brook or two,
but Peacock has been over every inch of it before, and you may trust in
him implicitly. Good bye! I'm going up the road with Jem to drive it
from the upper end."

And off he went at a merry trot, with the hounds gamboling about his
stirrups, and Jem Lyn running at his best pace to keep up with him. In a
few minutes they were lost behind a swell of woodland, round which the
road wheeled suddenly. At the same moment Tom and his companions
reappeared from the stables where they had been securing their
four-footed friends; and, after a few seconds, spent in running ramrods
down the barrels to see that all was right, inspecting primings, knapping
flints, or putting on fresh copper caps, it was announced that all was
ready; and passing through the farm-yard, we entered, through a set of
bars, a broad bright buckwheat stubble. Scarcely an hundred yards had we
proceeded, before we sprung the finest bevy of the largest quail I had
yet seen, and flying high and wild crossed half-a-dozen fields in the
direction of the village, whence we had started, and pitched at length
into an alder brake beside the stream.

"Them chaps has gone the right way," Tom exclaimed, with a deep sigh,
who had with wondrous difficulty refrained from firing into them, though
he was loaded with buckshot; "right in the course we count to take this
forenoon. Now, Squire, keep to the left here, t