The duck crop being a failure, the boys had to content themselves with the snipe crop. After the ducks, save now and then a wood-duck or a blue-winged teal which had decided to stay all summer, were beyond reach of even a thirteen-inch cannon, not to speak of a twelve gauge single-barrel, jack snipe and plover still lingered in the marshes and along the edges of the streams.
It was the second Saturday in April, and Ned and Tom were among the sloughs across the river, raking the country for whatever might be so unlucky as to offer itself as an acceptable target. The withdrawal of the ice from the Mississippi had given release to that in the sloughs, and everything was springlike and green and watery.
Now it was afternoon. As to what the boys had thus far secured, the less said, the better. Of course, one cannot have good luck on every trip. But there was a chance, yet, to round out the day well, had not Tom’s gun, impatient and unruly, sailed in without waiting, and on its own hook.
The slough was on the boys’ right. They were walking single file—Ned carelessly a few paces ahead, or Tom carelessly a few paces behind, just as critics choose—on the alert for game. It might be a pair of plover winging overhead, or a jack snipe whisking from under their feet, or, possibly, a belated duck squawking from its covert, or—something else.
“Boom!” And Ned was on his knees, and, astonished, was trying not to fall farther.
It had happened so very suddenly. The first thing that he knew, his ears had been deafened by a tremendous crash, and at the same instant he had been struck a violent blow on the back, and thrown forward. The next thing that he knew, he was tottering on his knees, and Tom was bending over him, wailing:
“I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him! Oh, dear, what shall I do!”
“I know you didn’t mean to, Tom,” comforted Ned, still rather hazy as to just what had taken place.
“Are you dying, Ned? Don’t die! Oh, don’t die!” pleaded Tom.