"Frank, he has got my bird--and shot, just as I told you, through the
neck and near the great wing joint--good dog! good dog!"
"The devil!"
"Yes, the devil! but look out man, here is yet one more point;" and this
time ten or twelve birds flushed upon Archer's side; he slew, as usual,
his brace, and as they crossed, at long distance, Frank knocked down one
more--the rest flew to the corn-field.
In the middle of the buckwheat they flushed another, and, in the rye,
another bevy, both of which crossed the stream, and settled down among
the alders. They reached the corn-field, and picked up their birds
there, quite as fast as Frank himself desired--three ruffed grouse they
had bagged, and four rabbits, in a small dingle full of thorns, before
they reached the corn; and just as the tin horns were sounding for noon
and dinner from many a neighboring farm, they bagged their thirty-fourth
quail. At the same moment, the rattle of a distant wagon on the hard
road, and a loud cheer replying to the last shot, announced the
Commodore; who pulled up at the tavern door just as they crossed the
stepping-stones, having made a right good morning's work, with a dead
certainty of better sport in the afternoon, since they had marked two
untouched bevies, thirty-five birds at least, beside some ten or twelve
more stragglers into the alder brakes, which Harry knew to hold--
moreover, thirty woodcock, as he said, at the fewest.
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