Harry
loaded again. We set off to pick up our dead birds. Shot drew, as I
thought, on my first, and pointed dead within a yard of where he fell. I
walked up carelessly, with my gun under my arm, and was actually
stooping to bag him, as I thought, when whiz! one rose almost in my
face; and, bothered by seeing us all around him, towered straight up
into the air. Taken completely by surprise, I blazed away in a hurry,
and missed clean; but not five yards did he go, before Tom cut him down.
"Aha, boy! whose eye's wiped now?"
"Mine, Tom, very fairly; but can that be the same cock I knocked down,
Archer?"
"Not a bit of it; I saw your's fall dead as a stone; he lies half a yard
farther in that tussock."
"How the deuce did you see him? Why, you were shooting your own at the
same moment."
"All knack, Frank; I marked both my own and yours, and one of Tom's
besides. Are you ready? Hold up, Shot! There; he has got your dead bird.
Was I not right? And look to! for, by Jove! he is standing on another,
with the dead bird in his mouth! That's pretty, is it not?"
Again two rose, and both were killed; one by Tom, and one by Archer; my
gun hanging fire.
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