he bird was half way across the valley; but all the same he
fired. For another second the bird continued its flight, but in a
slightly irregular fashion; then down it went like a stone into the
heather on the opposite side of the chasm.

"Well done, sir!" cried old Hamish.

"Bravo!" called out Macleod.

"It was a grand long shot!" said Sandy, as he unslipped the sagacious
old retriever, and sent her down into the glen.

They had scarcely spoken when another dark object, looking to the
startled eye as if it were the size of a house, sprang from the heather
close by, and went off like an arrow, uttering a succession of sharp
crowings. Why did not he fire? Then they saw him in wild despair whip
down the gun, full-cock the left barrel, and put it up again. The bird
was just disappearing over a crest of rising ground, and as Ogilvie
fired he disappeared altogether.

"He's down, sir!" cried Hamish, in great excitement.

"I don't think so," Ogilvie answered, with a doubtful air on his face,
but with a bright gladness in his eyes all the same.

"He's down, sir," Hamish reasserted. "Come away Sandy, with the dog!" he
shouted to the red-headed lad, who had gone down into the glen to help
Nell in her researches. By this time they saw that Sandy was recrossing
the burn with the grouse in his hand, Nell following him contentedly.
They whistled, and again whistled; but Nell considered that her task had
been accomplished, and alternately looked at them and up at her
immediate master. However, the tall lad, probably considering that the
whistling was meant as much for him as for the retriever, sprang up the
side of the glen in a miraculous fashion, catching here and there by a
bunch of heather or the stump of a young larch, and presently he had
rejoined the party.

"Take time, sir," said he. "Take time. Maybe there is more of them about
here. And the other one, I marked him down from the other side. We will
get him ferry well."

They found nothing, however, until they had got to the other side of the
hill, where Nell speedily made herself mistress of the other bird--a
fine young cock grouse, plump and in splendid plumage.

"And what do you think of the morning now, Ogilvie?" Macleod asked.

"Oh, I dare say it will clear," said he, shyly; and he endeavored to
make light of Hamish's assertions that they were "ferry pretty
shots--ferry good shots; and it was always a right thing to put
cartridges in the barrels at the door of